jM*. 


NMmHMMH 


iWILLlAM  O.  STODDARD 


LINCOLN  ROOM 


UNIVERSITY  OF  ILLINOIS 
LIBRARY 


MEMORIAL 

the  Class  of  1901 


founded  by 

HARLAN  HOYT  HORNER 

and 

HENRIETTA  CALHOUN  HORNER 


LINCOLN  AT  WORK 


ABRAHAM   LINCOLN. 
Engraved  from  tlie  rare  print  referred  to  on  page  43. 


Lincoln  at  Work 


sketches  from  Life 


BY 


WILLIAM  O.  STODDARD 


Illustrated  by  Sears  Gallagher 


WfT 


X 


m 


UfU 


United  Society  of  Christian  Endeavor 
Boston  and  Chicago 


Copyright,   1 900 

by  the 

United  Society  of  Christian  Endeavor 


2>:i  sz  Gi 


L/NC4>/.AJ 


Kno  r.' 


CHAP. 


I. 

II. 

III. 

IV. 

V. 

VI. 

VII. 

VIII. 

IX. 

X. 

XI. 

XII. 

XIII. 

XIV. 

XV. 

XVI. 


CONTENTS 


List  of  Illustrations 

Preface        .... 

A  Country  Politician 

A  Trial  by  Spade 

Very  Dry  Grass 

Portraits  of  Lincoln 

A  Forgotten  Hero 

The  Dark  Work-Eoom 

Writing  to  the  President 

The  Night  Council 

The  Sideboard  and  the  White  House 

The  Sentry  at  the  Gate 

Tjhe  Messenger  to  the  President 

The  Wrestling-Match     . 

Uncle  Sam's  Web-Feet 

Lincoln's  Great  Discovery 

Take  That  to  Stanton 

The  Voice  of  the  South 


PAGE 

.       7 

9 

.     11 

20 

.     31 

42 

.     52 

60 

71 

82 

92 

102 

.  113 

124 

.  135 

145 

.  154 

164 


LIST  OF  ILLUSTRATIONS 


PAGE 

Frontispiece. 


POETRAIT  OF  LINCOLN 

"  How  ARE  YOU  TO-DAY,  DOC  ?  " 

"  Now  THE  SPADE  WAS  UP  IN  THE  AIR  " 

"  All  HIS  SOUL  was  aflame  " 

"The  muzzle  went   crashing    through    that 

pane"    ..... 
The  President  and  the  Pins 
'•  John,  just  tell  that  story  over  again  " 

"I   DON'T  believe   MR.    LINCOLN   CAN   BE    AT   ALL 

AWARE  OF  THIS  " 
"  It  'S  NOT  THERE,  YOUR  EXCELLENCY  " 
"It  WAS  A  CURIOUSLY  INFORMAL  COUNCIL  " 

Portrait  of  Mrs.  Lincoln  .  .  Facing  page 
"Put  OUT  DOT  cigar-r-r!  "  .... 
"It  couldn't  be  called  a  council  of  war " 

Facing  page    117 


13 
29 
39 

56 
63 

68 

74 
84 
89 
99 
107 


"  Every  whit  as  supreme  as  ever  " 

"  What  do  you  think  of  it?  " 

"  Grant  is  the  first  general  I  've  had  " 

General  Grant  .... 

"  Every  ear  was  husked  by  a  union  soldier  " 

"Read  that!"  .... 

"  Lincoln  is  dead  !    Lincoln  is  dead  !  " 

7 


134 
143 
150 
153 

158 
163 
169 


Preface. 

lOME  time  after  the  sketches  of  which 
this  volume  is  composed  began  to 
make  their  appearance  in  The 
Christian  Endeavor  Worlds  an  in- 
telligent woman  inquired  of  the  author : — 

"  Please  tell  me,  did  Mr.  Lincoln  seem  a 
great  man  to  those  who  were  most  intimately 
associated  with  him  in  every-day  life  ?  Or 
Avas  he  only  great  at  a  distance,  or  in  retro- 
spect ?  Did  he  seem  great  to  you,  as  you  met 
him  daily  at  the  White  House  ?  " 

"  As  to  that,  madam,"  I  replied,  "  I  discov- 
ered, in  after  years,  that  I  had  seen  and  studied 
his  greatness  much  more  fully,  perhaps  more 
critically,  than  I  was  then  aware.  One  strong 
impression  was  left  upon  my  mind  indelibly. 
I  saw  him  on  various  occasions,  under  varied 
circumstances,  surrounded  by  or  in  conference 
Avith  the  foremost  men  of  his  day.  Among 
them  were  his  cabinet  officers.  Senators,  Con- 
gressmen, jurists,  governors  of  States,  scholars, 
literary  men,  military  and  naval  celebrities, 
foreign  ambassadors.     Of  many  of  these  men 

9 


10  PREFACE 

I  had  myself  formed  previously  even  exagger- 
ated estimates.  I  took  note,  however,  of  one 
inevitable,  unfailing  phenomenon.  Every  man 
of  them  seemed  suddenlv  to  diminish  in  size 
the  moment  he  in  any  manner  came  into  com- 
parison with  Mr.  Lincoln.  Another  curious 
thino:  was  that  all  the  reallv  ablest  men  aniono- 
them  were  aware,  consciously  or  unconsciously, 
of  the  superior  strength  confronting  them. 
Of  course  there  were  those  who  consented  to 
say  and  even  to  record  that  they  considered 
him  defective,  if  not  weak.  They  believed 
that  they  had  read  him,  measured  him :  thev 
regretted  that  the  affairs  of  the  nation  were 
not  in  more  capable  hands, — their  own,  for 
instance." 

"  There,"  she  exclaimed,  "  I  am  glad  to  hear 
vou  say  so.  I  wonder  if  I  should  know  a  OTeat 
man  if  I  happened  to  meet  one." 

"  It  is  not  likely  that  you  would,"  I  told  her. 
"Not  unless  you  saw  him  actually  doing 
something  that  nobody  else  could  do.  You 
woul^l  perceive  his  greatness  then,  if  you  saw 
him  at  work " 

"That's  it,"  she  said.  "Mr.  Stoddard,  I'd 
like  to  see  Abraham  Lincoln  at  his  work  I  " 

William  O.  Stoddard. 

Madiaon,  N.  /.,  May  /6,  igoo. 


A  CoiintM  PoKtician 


/-^.<iS2t^ 


^^^HAT  whole  job  pied?     The  care- 
less young  imp  I     What  on  earth 
made  him  meddle  with  it  ?     And 
here  I  am,  with  a  colmnn  leader 
to  write,  and  all  the  news  to  make  up  I " 

"It  can't  be  helped,  now,  and  we  want  to 
get  to  press  early  to-morrow.  Big  edition. 
It's  pied  awful !  " 

The  young  printer  who  was  looking  at  the 
wreck  of  types  with  such  an  air  of  dismay  was 
evidently  the  editor  also  of  the  weekly  journal 
which  he  was  preparing  for  the  press.  He  was 
of  medium  height,  with  dark  hair  and  a  pair 
of  saucy  eyes.  He  stepped  around,  moreover, 
with  the  somewhat  jaunty,  half-defiant  air 
which  was  likely,  perhaps,  to  distinguish  a  far- 
TVestern  journalist  with  local  disturbances  close 
at  hand. 

It  was  a  hot  June  dav.  and  he  was  in  his 
shirt  and  trousers.  His  shirt-sleeves  were 
rolled  up  to  the  shoulder,  and  his  hands  were 
black  with  jn'inter's  ink. 

The  printing-office  Avas  in  the  second  story 
of  a  large  frame  building  that  shook  timor- 

11 


12  LINCOLN  AT  WORK 

ously  whenever  the  press  was  running  or  a 
good  breeze  blowing.  Below,  in  front,  was  a 
flourishing  dry -goods  concern.  In  the  rear  of 
this  was  the  editorial  sanctum,  and  this  also 
served  for  the  office  of  a  physician  who  was  a 
principal  owner  of  the  journal. 

This  gentleman  was  now  standing  at  his 
desk,  apparently  occupied  in  the  manufacture 
of  pills.  Short,  thin,  wiry,  with  a  pugilistic 
expression  of  face,  he  had  persisted  in  wearing, 
even  in  summer,  a  gorgeously  flowered  plush 
waistcoat. 

Somebody  came  in  at  the  wide-open  door  at 
this  moment,  almost  filling  it,  he  was  so  very 
tall.  He  was  a  powerful  looking,  sallow-faced, 
clean-shaven  man  of  middle  age.  He  wore  a 
high  silk  hat,  somewhat  foxy,  and  an  elderly 
black  suit. 

*'  How  are  you  to-day.  Doc  ?  "  he  inquired, 
but  he  could  hardly  have  heard  the  medical 
man's  soliloquy  over  his  pills. 

"Humph!  What  on  earth  is  he  here  for? 
He  is  n't  enough  of  an  Abolitionist  to  suit  me. 
He's  at  work  on  this  'ere  new  party,  but  he 
can't  make  it  go.  'T  is  n't  in  him  !  How  are 
you  ?  "  he  nevertheless  responded  aloud,  as  he 
turned  to  shake  hands  with  his  tall  visitor. 
*'  Sit  down.  Cool  off.  Awful  hot  day.  How 
are  politics  ?  " 


A    COUNTRY  POLITICIAN 


13 


The  newcomer's  hat  was  off,  and  he  took  a 
chair,  mopping  his  broad,  deeply  wrinkled  fore- 
head with  a  red  bandanna  handkerchief. 


How  ARE  YOU  TO-DAY,    DOC?  " 


"  Well,  Doc,  I  'd  say  that  American  politics 
need  a  heap  of  doctoring,  just  now.  I  want 
to  see  that  young  man  of  the  Gazette.  They 
tell  me  that  he  knows  about  everybody  in  the 


14  LINCOLN  AT   WORK 

county.  I  want  to  know  how  things  are  run- 
ning. Can  you  fetch  him  ?  If  you  can,  bring 
him  out." 

"He's  up-stairs,  now,"  replied  the  doctor. 
"  He's  as  busy  as  a  bee,  though.  What  do  you 
want  to  know  ?  " 

"  Well,  I  'd  kind  o'  like  to  have  a  talk  with 
him.     Call  him  down,  Doc  ?  " 

"  Ye — es,"  drawled  the  doctor.  "  He  can 
come,  if  you  really  want  to  see  him.  Speak- 
ing of  politics,  though,  I  want  to  say  one  thing 
'bout  myself,  right  here.  I'm  not  any  sort  of 
half-way  man.  I'm  an  out-and-out  Abolition- 
ist." 

The  tall  man  laughed,  in  a  quiet,  peculiar 
way.  He  seemed  to  be  amused,  but  the  doctor 
was  not,  and  he  went  up  the  stairs  with  the 
air  of  a  man  who  was  not  well  pleased  with 
his  errand. 

"  I  say  !  "  he  blurted,  as  he  reached  the  upper 
floor.  "Come  down.  The  old  man  is  here 
and  wants  to  see  ye.  You  'd  best  come,  but 
you  can't  make  anything  out  of  him.  I  s'pose 
vou  know  'bout  what  he  is.     He  was  in  Con- 


gress once 

"  Hang  it !  "  responded  the  irritated  man  at 
the  pied  job.  "  I  can't  leave  this.  I  have  n't 
a  minute  to  spare." 

"  Come   along  !  "   urged   his  friend.     "  You 


A    COUNTRY  POLITICIAN  15 

are  looking  like  sin!     Can't  you  brush  up  a 
little  ?     Put  on  your  coat." 

"E'o,  I  won't.  Not  for  liim  or  anybody 
else.  Not  this  hot  day.  I  '11  come  as  I  am,  or 
I  won't  come  at  all.  What  do  you  suppose 
he  '11  care  how  I  look  ?  " 

"  Why,  man  alive,  you  're  all  ink.  Some  on 
your  face,  where  you  wiped  it.  No  collar  on. 
Worst-looking  critter " 

*'Tell  you  what,  then,  Doctor,"  said  the 
editor,  "  I  '11  compromise.  I  '11  wash  my  hands, 
but  I  won't  roll  down  my  shirt-sleeves.  Tell 
him  I  'm  coming." 

There  was  a  musical  chuckle  near  the  desk 
in  the  room  below,  for  the  conversation  up- 
stairs had  not  been  carried  on  in  a  whisper. 

Down  came  the  doctor  to  report,  and  to  put 
pills  into  little  boxes,  and  to  measure  powders 
with  a  horn  spoon,  and  his  tall  visitor  chatted 
away  with  him  pleasantly. 

The  printer  left  his  job  rebelliously,  and 
scrubbed  at  his  ink-stains  as  if  he  loved  them 
and  preferred  having  them  where  they  were. 
Sharp  rubbing  with  a  crash  towel  followed, 
and  his  toilet  was  completed.  Nevertheless, 
there  was  a  half-bashful  flush  upon  his  face 
when  he  came  down  into  the  sanctum,  for  the 
gentleman  he  was  to  meet  was  really  a  man  of 
some  distinction, — that  is,  in  his  own  State, 


16  LINCOLN  AT   WORK 

but  not  outside  of  it.  He  was  considered  a 
good  lawyer,  and  had  been  active  as  a  political 
manager.  It  was  generally  understood,  just 
at  this  time,  however,  that  he  had  utterly 
ruined  his  political  career,  for  the  future,  by 
the  extraordinary,  half-crazy  blunders  which 
he  had  recently  been  making. 

"  How  are  you  ?  "  he  said  to  the  young  man, 
somewhat  as  if  he  had  known  him  from  child- 
hood. "  I  won't  bother  you  long,  but  you  can 
tell  me  a  few  little  things  that  I  want  to  know. 
You  keep  track  of  the  drift  of  the  county  poli- 
tics, and  you  can  say  how  the  people  are 
going." 

"  No — o,"  put  in  the  young  editor.  "  They  're 
not  going,  just  now.  Half  of  'em  don't  know 
where  they  are,  and  the  other  half  are  nailed 
down  to  their  old  notions." 

"  Just  so  !  "  exclaimed  the  visitor.  "  It 's 
just  so  everywhere  else.  Now  I  want  to  take 
this  county  up  by  the  townships,  one  by  one. 
How,  for  example,  is  Lost  Grove  township  ?  " 

"That?  Why,  that's  old  Mack's.  Only 
two  newspapers  taken  there.  Only  four  men 
and  an  old  woman  that  can  read  even  them. 
He  owns  the  distillery.  The  voters  get  their 
tickets  from  him  every  time.  He  's  quarrelling 
with  the  pro-slavery  men,  though,  about  his 
hiring  some  free  niggers.     If  he  should  make 


A    COUNTRY  POLITICIAN  17 

up  his  mind  to. hire  two  or  three  more,  you 
can  count  on  that  township,  solid,  for  this 
once." 

"Just  so,"  laughed  the  visitor.  "And  now, 
how  about  Turney's  and  all  along  the  South 
Fork  ?  " 

"  O  !  The  Egyptians  !  They're  all  voting 
for  General  Jackson  vet." 

"They  haven't  heard  that  he's  dead?" 
slowly  drawled  the  tall  politician.  "  That 's 
the  trouble  with  a  good  many  people.  But 
they  're  all  going  to  be  waked  up  pretty  soon. 
And  now  how  about "  So  he  went  care- 
fully on,  exhibiting  a  minuteness  of  local 
knowledge  of  persons  and  things  that  was 
remarkable.  From  townships  he  came  down 
to  villages,  to  hamlets,  to  individual  men  and 
their  antecedents,  as  if  at  some  previous  time 
he  had  compiled  a  directory  of  all  that  region. 

The  young  editor  was  now  sitting  Avith  his 
bare  elbows  resting  upon  the  doctor's  table, 
gazing  absorbedly  into  the  deeply  marked,  un- 
handsome, but  wonderfully  intelligent,  face  of 
the  man  before  him. 

The  doctor  ?  O  !  They  had  both  forgotten 
him.  1^0  sooner  had  this  pair  entered  upon 
their  uninteresting  cross-examination  than  he 
had  picked  up  his  leather  medicine-case  and 
walked  out  in  silence.    The  tall  politician  must 


18  LINCOLN  AT  WORK 

also  have  almost  forgotten  the  young  editor 
himself,  for  he  shortly  talked  on  as  if  half  so- 
liloquizing. He  seemed  to  be  employing  the 
statistics  of  that  couuty  as  a  sample  study  for 
the  understanding  of  the  condition  of  scores  of 
others,  and  of  the  State,  and  of  other  States, 
and  of  the  whole  country.  He  even  picked  up 
a  pencil  and  jotted  down  the  figures  of  rough 
estimates,  his  readings  of  political  possibilities. 

The  pied  job  lay  deserted  upon  the  imposing- 
stone,  up-stairs,  while  the  Western  country  pol- 
itician was  in  this  manner  wasting  his  own 
time  and  that  of  the  absorbed  young  printer. 
The  typesetters  would  soon  be  calling  for  copy, 
and  the  proposed  "  leader  "  was  yet  unwritten. 

The  day  was  drifting  on  toward  noon,  when 
the  visitor  at  last  arose,  and  he  shook  hands 
heartily  as  he  said  to  his  new  adherent : 
"  Thank  you.  I  '11  see  you  again  some  day. 
Stump  your  district.  Do  all  you  can  for  good 
organization.  We  shall  win  yet.  You  may 
be  sure  of  that.  Such  a  cause  as  ours  cannot 
fail." 

"  I  believe  that !  "  almost  shouted  the  young 
man.  '^  But,  Mr.  Lincoln,  it's  an  awful  up-hill 
tramp,  just  now." 

"The  top  o'  the  hill  is  nearer  to  climb  than 
some  folks  think  it  is." 

Out  he  went,  and  the  printer  was  about  to 


-\ 


i 


A    COUNTRY  POLITICIAN  19 

ascend  the  stairs  when  the  doctor  stepped  in 
through  a  door  from  the  dry-goods  store. 

"  Hollo  !  "  he  inquired.  "  Is  Old  Abe  gone  ? 
I  reckon  you  did  n't  manage  to  make  much  out 
of  him.  He 's  kind  o'  played  out,  he. is.  We  've 
got  to  look  round  for  somebody  else  to  take 
the  lead  o'  things.*" 

The  editor  shook  his  head,  and  went  up  with- 
out replying,  for  he  was  still  under  the  tre- 
mendous fascination  of  the  tall  man's  person- 
ality. He  walked  slowly  to  the  pied  job,  and 
began  to  finger  it. 

"  So,"  he  muttered,  "  that's  Old  Abe.  I  've 
heard  a  great  deal  about  him,  but  I  never  saw 
him.  before.  I  reckon  I  want  to  see  him  again. 
He  seems  to  know  exactly  what  all  our  people 
are  made  of,  man  by  man.  I  'm  glad  I  've  had 
a  talk  with  Abraham  Lincoln.'* 


AAA  ASfl 

A  TRIAL  BY  SPADE 


E'S  going  to  be  hung  !  " 

"Well,  he   ought   to   be.     He 
killed  him." 

"  What  on  earth  did  he  kill  him 
for,   right  there  in  the  store  ?  " 

"  He  wanted  his  monev.  You  see,  the  fellow 
was  there  to  buy  cattle.  He  had  lots  of  cash 
with  him.  It  was  the  easiest  thing  in  the 
world  to  knock  him  down  with  a  spade,  gather 
the  mone}^,  jump  on  a  horse  that  was  ready, 
and  ride  away." 

"  But  they  caught  him." 

"  That  was  his  blunder.  More  men  at  hand 
than  he  counted  on.  They  had  pluck,  too,  and 
they  grappled  him.  Two  of  'em  were  power- 
ful strong  men.  I^ow  he 's  going  to  suffer  for 
it.     Going  to  'tend  the  trial?" 

"  Of  course  I  am.  I  would  n't  miss  it  for 
anything.     Who 's  to  defend  him  ?  " 

"  Nobody,  as  yet.  They  '11  'point  some  law- 
yer or  other,  for  form's  sake.  That  is,  if  he 
is  n't  lynched  first.  There 's  right  smart  o' 
talk,  among  the  neighbors,  of  stringing  him 
right  up." 

20 


A    TRIAL  BY  SPADE  21 

Everybody  else  was  talking  about  it  in  just 
that  way,  and  I  kept  my  word  about  going 
down  by  rail  to  see  how  that  trial  would  turn 
out.  I  had  never  seen  a  murder  trial  in  all 
my  life,  and  I  wanted  to  know  how  it  was 
done,  especially  in  a  clear  case  like  this. 

There  was  a  crowd  in  the  county  town,  just 
as  I  knew  there  w^ould  be. 

There  were  nearly  as  many  women  as  men, 
and  some  of  them  brought  their  knitting. 
Quite  a  number  were  of  the  new  kind  of  peo- 
ple from  the  Eastern  States,  but  most  were  old 
settlers  that  knew  each  other  at  sight.  The 
new  people  and  the  old  sort  could  be  told 
apart  by  once  looking  at  them.  Every  soul, 
anyhow,  seemed  to  know  all  about  the  murder, 
and  they  were  more  than  ready  to  tell  what 
they  knew,  l^ot  any  of  them  had  seen  the 
murderer  yet,  but  nobody  had  any  pity  for 
him.  It  was  -so  awfully  wicked  a  thing  for 
him  to  do. 

It  was  away  down  in  middle  Illinois,  and  it 
is  pretty  hot  there,  sometimes,  in  summer.  It 
was  hot  that  day,  and  the  crowd  looked  red- 
faced  and  wilted.  I  heard  one  man  say  that 
as  for  him,  if  he  was  that  convict,  he  'd  rather 
be  shot  at  once  than  to  have  to  wait,  and  know 
all  the  while  that  the  rope  was  getting  ready, 
and   to   have  to  face  the  judge  and  the  jury, 


22  LINCOLN  AT  WORK 

and  his  fellow  citizens,  and  to  hear  the  evi- 
dence closing  in  on  him. 

The  courtroom  was  a  big  one,  all  dingy  and 
whittled  up,  and  the  windows  were  all  open 
to  let  in  what  air  there  was.  Every  square 
foot  of  room  for  sitting  and  standing  was  oc- 
cupied early.  They  took  the  prisoner  in  at 
the  back  door ;  and  then  there  was  a  buzz, 
everybody  trying  to  get  a  look  at  him.  The 
women,  all  told  each  other  what  they  thought 
about  his  ferocious  face. 

He  was  a  very  short,  stocky,  common-look- 
ing man,  and  his  face  was  quite  ugly,  as  if 
he  felt  savage  and  rebellious  instead  of  being 
meekly  resigned  to  receive  the  just  reward  of 
his  crime.  That  told  against  him  right  away. 
He  was  hardened,  and  the  women  in  particular 
had  expected  him  to  show  some  signs  of  re- 
pentance. So  they  took  off  their  hats  and 
bonnets,  and  squared  themselves  to  what  was 
coming.  ]^ot  more  than  a  dozen  of  the  men 
in  that  room,  except  the  lawyers,  had  their 
coats  on.  Some  few  of  their  shirts  were  kind 
of  white,  but  more  were  homespun  hickory  or 
red  flannel. 

The  judge  was  behind  his  desk  by  this  time. 
He  was  a  large,  heavy  man,  with  bushy  eye- 
brows, and  he  was  hard  and  stern  in  the  face, 
like  a  ready-made  sentence    of    death.     The 


A    TRIAL  BY  SPADE  23 

district  attorney  was  a  prime  good  lawyer. 
He  was  a  little  pale  and  nervous  just  now,  as 
any  fellow  ought  to  be  when  he  knows 
that  his  next  official  duty  is  practically  to  kill 
a  human  being.  He  had  other  good  counsel 
to  help  him  do  his  job,  though.  They  had  vol- 
unteered for  public  spirit. 

The  murderer  sat  down  in  his  place  with 
the  shadows  of  death  settling  around  him  and 
with  hundreds  of  pairs  of  eyes  staring  at  him. 
His  counsel  sat  near  him.  He  had  only  one,  a 
man  from  away  up  the  State,  who  had  offered 
to  come  down  and  defend  him  without  pay. 
That  was  right,  and  a  good  thing  for  him  to 
do.  It  would  make  the  trial  go  off  regu- 
larly, and  nobody  could  complain.  It  was 
only  fair  to  the  murderer  to  give  him  all  his 
lawful  chances,  although,  as  everybody  kneAV, 
he  had  not  any. 

He  was  one  of  the  tallest  men  you  ever  saw, 
that  lawver.  He  was  dressed  in  a  thin  black 
suit  that  was  not  new  by  any  means,  and  he 
was  clean-shaved.  The  men  that  watched  him 
closest  were  the  jury  ;  but  he  hardly  seemed  to 
look  at  them,  and  it  made  some  of  them  sit 
around  uneasy.  Men  in  a  jury-box  always 
like  to  be  treated  with  some  consideration  by 
counsel  on  either  side  of  the  case.  This 
lawyer  laughed,  too,  once  or  twice,  and   the 


24  LINCOLN  AT   WORK 

whole  crowd  felt  ano^rv  when  they  saw  him  do 
that,  at  so  solemn  a  thne,  with  his  own  client 
about  to  be  sentenced  to  be  hanged  by  the 
neck  until  he  was  dead. 

The  preliminaries  were  all  cut  short  by  the 
judge,  and  then  the  witnesses  were  put  upon 
the  stand,  one  bv  one.  There  were  onlv  three 
of  them  that  had  actually  seen  the  murder 
done.  They  were  all  well  dressed  and  looked 
fresh.  They  were  real  "  likely-looking  "  fel- 
lows, respectable  and  as  honest  as  the  day  ; 
and  they  all  told  precisely  the  same  story,  to  a 
hair's  breadth.' 

The  murdered  man,  as  they  had  all  seen,  and 
now  minutely  testified,  had  been  stricken 
down  with  an  ordinary  spade,  and  the  deadly 
weapon  was  produced,  with  blood-stains  on  it, 
and  was  duly  examined  by  the  iudo-e  and  by 
each  man  of  the  jury.  In  strong  hands  it  was 
eyidently  a  yery  deadly  weapon,  for  it  was 
new  and  its  steel  blade  was  sharp. 

The  accused  was  a  yery  muscular  man,  able 
to  strike  a  skull-cleaying  blow.  His  face  now 
grew  sullen  and  ferocious  as  he  looked  at  the 
spade  and  listened  to  the  death-dealing  testi- 
mony. The  work  of  the  district  attorney  and 
his  helpers  in  questioning  the  witnesses  was 
thorough,  precise,  and  perfect.  Their  several 
accounts  were  brought  out  to  absolute  agree- 


A    TRIAL   BY  SPADE  25 

ment.  The  audience  breathed  more  and  more 
freely  all  the  while,  and  the  women  knitted 
faster,  and  nodded  at  one  another  approvingly. 
This  murder  had  happened  precisely  as  they  all 
knew  that  it  had  happened. 

A  bumblebee  that  came  in  at  a  window  and 
went  buzzing  around  the  head  of  the  judge,  and 
then  across  to  the  jury,  was  of  about  as  much 
importary:e  as  would  be  anything  the  prisoner's 
counsel  could  think  up  to  say  after  all  the  tes- 
timony was  in. 

During  all  this  time,  moreover,  he  had  been 
taking  the  most  curious,  senseless  kind  of 
course.  He  had  asked  a  great  many  questions, 
as  his  duty  was,  of  each  of  the  witnesses ;  but 
all  of  his  Cjuestions  and  all  the  answers  he 
brought  out  had  made  it  look  a  great  deal  as 
if  he  had  been  hired  to  help  the  district  at- 
torney convict  that  man.  He  was  only  driy- 
ing  nail  after  nail,  so  to  speak,  into  the  coffin 
of  his  unlucky  client.  Poor  fellow,  he  was, 
after  all,  with  nobody  really  trying  to  defend 
him  and  not  one  friend  in  the  courtroom. 

The  murderer  was  proved  to  be  very  poor, 
ignorant,  and  of  questionable  moral  or  reli- 
gious character.  In  the  middle  front  part  of 
the  store  had  been  an  upright  supporting  post, 
and  by  this  the  cattle-buyer  had  been  standing 
at  the  moment  when  he  was  cut  down.     One 


/ 


26  LINCOLN  AT  WORK 

of  the  witnesses  had  been  behind  the  counter 
on  the  right ;  another,  behind  the  counter  on 
the  left ;  the  third  had  been  in  the  front  door- 
way. The  striker  had  stood  back  by  another 
similar  post,  against  which  a  stack  of  new 
spades  had  been  leaning.  One  of  these  he  had 
taken  up  and  had  used  to  do  the  killing  with. 

The  counsel  for  the  defence,  to  do  him 
justice,  had  at  least  taken  the  pains  to  visit 
the  country  store.  He  had  taken  closely  care- 
ful measurements  with  a  tape  line  which  he 
now  took  out  of  his  pocket  and  showed  to  the 
jury.  To  all  these  measurements  he  had  ob- 
tained the  sworn  testimony  of  the  three  chief 
witnesses  and  of  two  other  men.  He  made 
them  almost  tediously  accurate.  With  his 
help,  therefore,  the  net  of  convicting  evidence 
was  at  last  complete,  and  his  client  was  all 
tangled  up  hopelessly  in  it.  The  audience,  too, 
felt  that  they  and  the  jury  were  in  the  net; 
and  they  were  entirely  satisfied. 

"  What  will  he,  can  he,  have  to  say  ?  "  they 
whispered  one  to  another ;  but  the  women 
stopped  their  knitting  when  the  district  at- 
torney arose  to  sum  up,  and  a  very  curious, 
unaccountable  change  took  place  in  the  face 
of  the  judge.  He  actually  smiled  and  fanned 
himself,  and  looked  half-way  comfortable. 

The  summing-up  Avas  eloquent  and  able,  and 


A    TRIAL  BY  SPADE  27 

the  district  attorney  sat  down  at  last  a  very 
much  admired  and  popular  lawyer. 

Kow  came  the  time  for  the  murderer's 
counsel  to  finish  his  work  of  giving  up  his 
client  to  sure  justice.  Of  course,  it  was  to  be 
expected  that  he  would  make  a  big  appeal  for 
mercy  and  try  to  stir  up  the  humane  feelings 
of  the  jury  ;  but  he  could  see  by  the  set  look 
on  their  faces  that  they  were  not  exactly  that 
kind  of  men.  It  was  not  going  to  be  of  any 
use.  He  stood  up,  and  he  was  by  all  odds 
the  tallest  man  in  the  room.  Now  he  made 
his  short  client  stand  up  by  him,  and  the  man's 
head  came  only  to  his  shoulder.  He  took  the 
spade  itself  and  held  it  against  the  murderer's 
side,  as  if  he  were  carefully  comparing  their 
lengths. 

Just  then  I  could  hear  a  whisper  away 
across  the  room,  by  the  door,  it  was  so 
still.  "  Something's  coming,  now  !  He  is  al- 
ways great  before  a  jury  !  " 

The  gaze  with  which  that  poor,  doomed 
fellow  looked  up  into  the  face  of  his  defender 
just  then  was  awfully  sad  and  earnest  and  kind 
of  pleading.  His  lips  quivered,  too  ;  but  they 
grew  firm  again  and  a  sort  of  faith  and  hope 
began  to  dawn  in  his  eyes.  He  sat  down,  and 
the  tape  line  came  out  of  his  lawyer's  pocket 
again.     He  began  to   talk   to   the  jury  in  a 


28  LINCOLN  AT   WORK 

familiar,  neighborly  way,  as  if  they  all  knew 
him  and  he  knew  all  of  them.  He  went  on, 
then,  with  a  dull,  prosy  reiteration  of  the 
testimony,  now  and  then  stooping  down  and 
measuring  with  his  tape  line  upon  the  floor. 

He  described  with  accurate  details  the 
counters  and  the  other  furniture  and  the 
general  contents  of  that  country  store.  He 
made  us  see  and  fix  in  our  minds  the  exact 
places  occupied  by  each  and  every  one  of  the 
human  beings  who  had  been  in  it  at  the  mo- 
ment when  the  spade  came  cleaving  down 
upon  the  head  of  the  cattle-buyer.  The  court- 
room and  everything  in  that  had  somehow 
vanished,  and  we  were  all  in  the  store,  stand- 
ino^  around  and  seeino:  the  murder  done.  It 
grew  awfully  vivid  and  exciting,  and  some  of 
the  women  were  almost  ready  to  scream  when 
the  hit  actually  came ;  for  now  the  spade  was 
up  in  the  air  at  the  end  of  the  tall  lawyer's 
very  long  arm,  and  he  was  about  to  kill  the 
cattle-bu3^er,  there  where  he  stood. 

"  Gentlemen  of  the  jury,"  he  suddenly  ex- 
claimed, "  by  the  sworn  testimony  of  all  these 
Avitnesses,  each  man  of  them  parroting  the 
same  story,  the  murdered  man  stood  exactly 
there  !  The  murderer  stood  precisel}^  here  I " 

He  struck  furiously  with  the  spade,  as  far  as 
lie  could  reach,  and  its  point    was  buried   in 


A    TRIAL  BY  SPADE 


29 


the  floor  less  than  half-way  between  those 
two  supporting  posts.  AVe  could  just  see 
them  and  the  men  that  stood  by  each  of 
them. 

*'  Gentlemen  of  the  jury,"  he  shouted,  "  my 
client  is  a  short  man.     I  am  a  tall  man.     I 


Drawn  by  Victor  A.  Searles. 

"Now  THE  SPADE  WAS   UP   IN   THE 


AIR, 


n 


could  not  have  done  it.  He  could  not  have 
done  it.  He  did  not  do  it !  Somebody  else  did 
it,  then  and  there." 

Clear,  ringing,  fiercely  angry,  was  his  last 
triumphant  declaration.  He  threw  the  spade, 
loudly  clanging,  down  upon  the  floor;    and, 


30  LIXCOLX  AT  WORK 

as  lie  sat  down  in  his  chair,  the  judge  himself 
all  but  laughed  aloud  and  the  jury  looked 
happv.  It  appeared  as  if  they  were  rather 
glad,  after  all,  to  see  their  way  to  give  a  ver- 
dict of  not  guilty,  without  leaving  the  jury- 
box. 

I  do  not  remember  what  afterward  became 
of  the  case.  That  defence,  however,  was  a 
pretty  good  example  of  Abraham  Lincoln's 
wav  of  o-ettinof  hold  of  the  minds  of  men  and 
bringing  them  around  to  see  the  truth  of  any 
matter  he  was  aroTiino:. 

Onlv  a  few  years  after  that,  he  had  the 
whole  country  for  a  courtroom.  He  won  his 
case,  too,  but  it  was  the  last  he  ever  tried,  and 
to  this  dav  we  all  see  that  Union  matter  exactlv 
as  he  did. 


Ws^eryJD  ry  Gfass 


m-^^::^m 


=^  '  %  ^::r'— 


HE  undulating  plain  to  which  the 
'jt ' '  early  French  explorers  gave  the 
^^^J_^-rr  name  of  Grand  Prairie  began  some- 
where in  Indiana,  and  extended 
westward  nearly  to  the  Mississippi  River. 
Manv  a  Ions  year  a^ro,  I  was  one  dav  riding 
over  the  central  part  of  this  plain,  as  yet  un- 
broken by  any  ploughing.  The  road  I  was 
following  was  an  old  buffalo-path,  and  the  tall 
grass  on  each  side  was  dry  and  yellow  under  the 
bright  Xovember  sunshine.  The  weather  had 
been  calm,  but  a  wind  from  the  north  was  rising. 
I  was  a  smoker  then,  and  I  reined  in  my 
horse  to  light  a  cigar.  The  match  I  lighted 
was  a  long-legged,  blue-headed  fellow  ;  and,  as 
the  Havana  kindled,  I  dropped  the  lucif er  with- 
out thinking  of  first  extinguishing  it.  Xear 
mv  horse's  hoofs,  however,  was  a  dense  btmch 
of  dry  grass  and  rosin  weeds,  very  much  as  if 
it  had  been  put  there  to  receive  that  match. 
*'  I  will  give  him  a  rest,''  I  thought,  and  the 
animal  was  willLng,  but  in  a  moment  more  he 
snorted  and  stepped  quickly  away. 

31 


32  LINCOLN  AT   WORK 

It  Tvas  not  the  wind  which  had  startled  him, 
although  that  had  suddenly  blown  a  stronger 
breath,  as  if  it  were  promising  a  gale.  A  puff 
of  black  smoke,  and  out  of  the  smoke  a  tongue 
of  angry  fire  sprung  up  from  the  combustible 
veo-etation,  and  the  horse  turned  his  head  and 
whinnied  his  surprise  as  he  stared  at  that 
blaze.  Hig-lier  rose  the  wind ;  and  swiftlv 
away,  spreading  to  right  and  left,  flashed  the 
fierce  red  line  of  the  risino-  conflao-ration.  In 
a  few  minutes  more  it  was  bounding  off 
southward,  uncontrollably.  On  the  short  grass 
rolls  of  the  prairie  it  swept  like  a  fiery  mow- 
ing-machine, and  in  the  deep  hollows  and  dry 
sloughs,  where  the  blue  grass  and  rosinweeds 
were  tall  and  densely  grown,  it  sprung  into  the 
air  four  fathoms  high,  with  a  loud,  triumphant 
roar.  It  would  die  out  only  away  off  yonder, 
against  some  watercourse,  perhaps  leaving 
nothing  unburned  behind  it. 

Kow,  I  was  not  the  inventor  or  creator  of 
the  dry  grass,  the  north  wind,  or  the  lucifer 
match ;  and  there  would  have  been  no  prairie 
fire  at  all  if  everything  had  not  been  made 
ready  beforehand  without  me.  This  is  i)re- 
cisely  the  way  in  which  Abraham  Lincoln  ob- 
tained  his  first  nomination  for  President  of  the 
United  States.  There  were  then,  and  have 
been   even   in   recent   days,    individuals    and 


VERY  DRY  GRASS  33 

cliques  and  ''  committees "  aspiring  to  fame, 
who  Lave  modestly  claimed  the  honor  of  hav- 
ing  discovered  Mr.  Lincoln  and  secured  for 
him  his  opportunity  at  Chicago. 

The  political  fact  is,  that,  when  the  Eepub- 
lican  Xational  Convention  came  together  in 
that  city  in  I860,  only  one  question  seemed  to 
be  before  it,  after  manufacturing  the  party 
platforms.  This  was,  Shall  the  candidate  be 
from  the  East  or  from  the  TTest  ?  If  from  the 
former,  it  must  be  Mr.  Seward  ;  and  that  as- 
surance gave  at  once  to  a  AVestern  choice  all 
the  many  Eastern  jealousies  w^hich  his  splendid 
career  had  there  aroused  against  him.  The 
question  therefore  was  practically  settled  be- 
fore a  ballot  was  taken.  The  preliminary 
complimentary  ballotings  were  as  if  the  East 
did  but  honor  Mr.  Seward  while  inviting  the 
West  to  name  its  own  candidate.  He  was  al- 
ready named,  not  by  the  prominent  politicians, 
or  any  man  of  them,  but  by  the  people  at 
large,  speaking  for  themselves  through  what  is 
called  the  country  press, — the  rural  journals, 
not  the  great  city  dailies. 

There  were  at  that  time  in  Illinois,  then  the 
pivotal  State  of  the  AYest,  two  men  who  dur- 
ing many  years  and  through  successive  political 
contests  had  grown  to  be  the  unquestioned 
representatives    of    their    respective    parties. 


34  LINCOLN  AT  WORK 

Stephen  A.  Douglas  was  "  The  Little  Giant " 
of  the  Democracy,  and  his  fame  and  power 
had  long  since  become  national.  He,  indeed, 
had  a  party  of  his  own,  and  had  so  far  out- 
grown the  old  pro-slavery  conservatism  that  it 
was  already  rebelling  against  him.  Abraham 
Lincoln,  the  acknowledged  leader  of  the  Whigs, 
was  in  like  manner  outgrowing  his  party,  and 
was  even  to  leave  a  large  part  of  it  behind 
him.  He  was  known  to  be  adopting  ideas  and 
assuming  a  position  which  would  enable  a  new 
party,  drawn  from  both  of  the  old,  to  rally 
around  him. 

All  readers  of  political  history  need  only  to 
refresh  their  memories  a  little  as  to  the  really 
w^onderful  character  of  the  Lincoln-Douglas 
stump  debates  in  the  Illinois  campaign  of 
1858.  When  these  were  ended,  Mr.  Lincoln's 
already  established  rank  in  the  West  had  be- 
come recognized  by  the  entire  country.  When 
we  pass  from  these  debates  to  the  recorded 
impression  make  by  Mr.  Lincoln's  great  speech 
at  Cooper  Institute  in  I^ew  York  City,  Feb- 
ruary 27,  1860,  an  inquiry  instantly  suggests 
itself.  Why  did  so  vast  a  concourse  of  the 
best  citizens  of  Xew  York  and  Xew  England 
gather  to  hear  for  the  first  time  an  entirely 
new  man  ?  Why  did  they  look  at  him  and 
listen  with  such  intense  interest,  saying  to  one 


VEBY  DRY  GRASS  35 

another,  "  This  is  our  probable  candidate  for 
president  of  the  United  States  "  ?  The  reason 
was  not  as  yet  altogether  clearly  understood 
or  acknowledged  by  themselves,  certainly  not 
finally  accepted  by  the  friends  of  other  emi- 
nent Republican  statesmen.  East  or  West. 
JSTevertheless,  it  was  because  the  people  of  the 
Mississippi  valley  had  already  nominated  Mr. 
Lincoln,  in  so  plain-spoken  and  unanimous  a 
fashion  that  their  decision  could  not  possibly 
be  set  aside.  So  powerful  was  the  impression 
which  they  had  made  that  Mr.  Lincoln's 
Cooper  Institute  speech  took  upon  itself  some- 
what of  the  character  of  a  prefatory  inaugural 
address. 

A  lighted  match  had  long  since  been  dropped 
into  an  immense  field  of  combustible  thought 
and  feeling,  and  a  strong  north  wind  had  been 
blowing  the  kindled  fire.  The  Central  Illinois 
Gazette  was  a  weekly  journal  of  large  circu- 
lation, printed  at  the  young  town  of  West 
Urbana,  afterward  named  Champaign,  in  Mr. 
Lincoln's  own  judicial  district,  the  eighth,  of 
Illinois.  It  was  mainly  owned  by  a  well- 
known  physician  of  that  place,  an  enthusi- 
astic anti-slaverv  man :  and  its  sole  editor  was 
a  young  man  who  had  grown  up  in  Kew  York 
as  a  disciple  of  Mr.  Seward.  I  had,  however, 
worked  under  Mr.  Lincoln,  both  as  editor  and 


36  LINCOLN  AT    WORK 

stump  speaker,  through  the  memorable  cam- 
paign of  1858.  I  had  acquired  great  admira- 
tion for  him  without  at  all  as  yet  understand- 
ing what  manner  of  man  he  might  be.  It  has 
since  appeared  that  all  his  other  friends,  espe- 
cially his  very  best  and  most  intimate  friends, 
had  advanced  to  a  somewhat  similar  position 
regarding  him.  I  had  been,  however,  a  curio^is 
student  of  notable  men  from  childhood,  and 
had  been  led  to  make  mental  analvses  of 
quite  a  large  number  of  them  on  actual  sight 
and  hearing. 

Champaign  was  then  little  more  than  the 
rail  way -station  half  of  the  very  old  settlement 
of  Urbana,  the  "  county  town."  In  the  early 
spring  of  1859,  Mr.  Lincoln  came,  as  usual,  to 
attend  to  his  law  cases  before  the  county 
court.  He  took  rooms  at  the  railway  hotel, 
the  Doane  House,  where  1  was  then  boarding. 

One  dav,  the"  doctor  and  I  had  a  contro- 
versy,  and  almost  a  collision,  as  to  the  political 
course  which  the  Gazette  should  henceforth 
take,  the  especial  point  being  the  name  of  our 
presidential  candidate.  I  was  not  ready  to 
name  anybody,  and  he  was ;  but  Mr.  Lincoln 
had  not  been  spoken  of  by  either  of  us. 
Neither  had  he  as  vet  been  mentioned  bv 
anybody  else;  and  no  other  journal,  large  or 
small,  had  printed  so  much  as  a  paragraph  sug- 


VERY  DRY  GRASS  37 

gesting  his  candidacy.  If  any  political  leader 
had  thought  of  him,  he  had  prudently  con- 
cealed what  may  be  termed  his  first  suspicions. 

Very  early,  the  next  morning  after  my  com- 
bat with  the  doctor,  Mr.  Lincoln  went  to  the 
post-office  for  his  mail.  He  came  back  with 
his  tall  stovepipe  hat  as  nearly  full  as  it  must 
sometimes  have  been  in  the  days  when  he  was 
postmaster  of  Salem,  and  had  no  other  place 
from  which  to  distribute  the  correspondence 
of  that  very  small  city.  It  may  Avell  have 
been  the  same  hat,  so  far  as  any  appearance 
of  fashion  or  newness  was  concerned.  The 
morning  was  chilly,  and  a  fire  was  burning  in 
the  huge  "  egg  stove "  in  the  middle  of  the 
hotel  office.  He  picked  up  a  mucli- whit  tied 
wooden  armchair,  and  drew  it  in  front  of  the 
stove.  He  sat  down,  put  his  feet  on  the  hearth, 
tipped  back  the  chair,  lodged  his  hat  between 
his  knees,  and  began  to  open  and  read  his 
letters. 

"While  he  was  thus  emplo3"ed,  already  ab- 
sorbed, paying  no  attention  to  anybody  or 
anything  else,  I  came  out  from  my  breakfast 
in  the  hotel  dining-room  adjoining  the  office. 
Ko  other  soul  was  here  but  Mr.  Lincoln ;  and 
at  first,  as  a  matter  of  course,  I  was  about  to 
speak  to  him.  My  head,  however,  was  at  the 
moment  full  of  my  controversy  soon  to  be  re- 


38  LINCOLN  AT  WORK 

newed  with  my  business  partner,  for  such  the 
doctor  was ;  and  I  paused  at  the  office  desk 
for  the  reader  to  finish  the  paper  just  then  in 
his  hand. 

The  next  instant,  I  myself  became  deeply 
interested  in  that  letter.  It  seemed  to  be 
composed  of  several  wide  pages  of  closely 
written,  black-lettered,  crabbed  handwriting; 
and  it  made  Mr.  Lincoln  throw  his  head  back 
and  shut  his  eyes,  as  if  to  keep  the  world  out 
while  he  was  thinking.  An  expression  grew 
in  his  dark,  strongly  marked  features  that  I 
had  never  seen  there  before.  Perhaps  nobody 
else  had  ever  seen  quite  so  much.  His  eyes 
opened  once  or  twice,  but  not  to  see  anything 
in  that  room.  It  was  rather  as  if  he  was  look- 
ing across  the  Atlantic  Ocean  or  into  futurity. 
They  closed  again,  and  the  blood  went  out  of 
his  face,  leaving  it  livid,  sallow,  and  gloomy  as 
niffht.  I  watched  him,  struck  Avith  sudden 
astonishment,  until  the  color  came  back  like  a 
swift  return  of  departed  life.  It  was  as  if  a 
great  fire  had  been  kindled  in  a  human  light- 
house ;  all  his  soul  was  aflame,  and  his  face 
was  but  a  window  glowing  with  radiance  that 
made  it  brilliant.  Never  yet  had  I  seen  any- 
thing like  that  upon  the  countenance  of  a  hu- 
man being,  and  the  conviction  came  flashing 
into   my  mind :     *'  That 's  the   greatest   man 


VEEY  DRY  GRASS 


39 


you   ever   saw.      Yes,   sir !      That 's   a   great 
man ! " 

I  had  no  longer  any  idea  of  saying  anything 
to  Mr.  Lincoln,  however,  and  I  very  silently 
slipped  out  of  the  Doane  House.     From  there. 


"All  his  soul  was  aflame." 

without  pausing  to  consult  with  anybody,  I 
hurried  to  the  Gazette  office.  The  doctor  had 
arrived  before  me,  and  was  sitting  at  his  own 
table,  measuring  out  powders  with  a  spoon. 
"Doctor!"  I  said,  with  much  energy,  "I've 


40  LINCOLN  AT  WORK 

made  up  my  mind  for  whom  we're  going  to  go 
for  president !  " 

"  You  don't  sav  !    Who  is  it  ?  " 

"  Abraham  Lincoln,  of  Illinois  !  " 

The  spoon  dropped,  spilling  some  powders. 

''What?  Old  Abe?  Nonsense!  We  might 
go  for  him  for  vice-president.  He  '11  never  do 
for  any  more  'n  that.  Seward  and  Lincoln 
would  n't  be  a  bad  ticket.  Who  on  earth  put 
that  into  your  head  ?  " 

"  He  did !  "  I  shouted.  "  'T  is  of  no  use, 
Doctor.  Lincoln  's  the  man  !  I  '11  get  off  this 
number  of  the  Gazette^  and  then  I  'm  off  to 
Springfield  and  Bloomington,  to  get  materials 
for  a  campaign-life  editorial." 

The  doctor  disputed;  but  he  yielded,  as  was 
somewhat  customary  in  that  office.  That 
number  of  the  Gazette  was  turned  off,  and  I 
went  to  Springfield  and  Bloomington.  The 
needed  information  was  obtained  from  Mr. 
Herndon,  Mr.  Leonard  Swett,  and  others,  and 
the  editorial  was  printed.  As  I  remember,  it 
was  only  about'two  columns  in  length  ;  but  an 
experiment  was  tried  with  it.  The  Gazette^s 
regular  exchange  list  was  large,  but  hundreds 
of  extra  copies  of  that  next  issue  were  sent  all 
over  the  West,  and  went  to  many  Eastern 
journals. 

The  return  mails  in  due  succession  brought 


VERY  DRY  GRASS  41 

a  great  and  complete  surprise.  Almost  all  of 
the  country  papers,  and  some  of  the  city 
dailies,  to  which  the  marked  Gazette  had  been 
sent  gave  it  special  notice  of  a  favorable 
character,  more  or  less  pronounced.  A  great 
number  of  them  reprinted  the  editorial  in 
whole  or  in  part,  and  scores  of  them  at  once 
put  Mr.  Lincoln's  name  at  the  head  of  their 
columns.  The  match,  small  as  it  was,  had 
been  thrown  into  very  dry  grass,  and  the  gale 
was  rising  rapidly.  Ii7hen,  shortly  afterward, 
some  of  the  managing  politicians  awoke  and 
looked  out  of  their  windows,  they  saw  the  en- 
tire West  kindling,  without  any  help  what- 
ever, for  the  nomination  of  Abraham  Lincoln. 
Nobody  anywhere  deserved  any  particular 
credit  for  recognizing  an  established  fact,  and 
the  fire  in  due  time  swept  over  the  entire 
country. 


oriraits  of  ICiftco 


^^p^^HEEE  are  portraits,  and  yet,  in  a 
meaning  which  we  may  well  wish 
the  term  to  have,  there  are  no  por- 
traits. There  are  only  imperfect 
resemblances  or  likenesses,  l^o  two  men  ever 
saw  the  same  landscape  or  even  the  same  tree, 
nor  did  any  man  ever  see  the  same  landscape 
twice. 

IS^othing,  it  is  said,  can  be  more  accurate 
than  a  really  good  photograph.  Perhaps  it  is 
so,  but  nothing  else  can  be  more  unsatisfactory, 
unless  it  may  be  the  next  absolutely  perfect 
sun-picture  of  the  same  subject.  The  process 
and  its  results  are  mechanical,  material ;  and 
the  best  that  was  ever  obtained  by  them  was 
a  good  representation  of  the  man  or  woman, 
for  instance,  at  one  moment  of  time  and  under 
given  conditions.  The  picture  will  preserve 
only  an  external  expression  which  was  upon 
the  face  before  the  camera,  and  this  is  indeed 
a  great  deal. 

The  portrait-painter,  the  very  best,  brings 
out  upon  his  canvas  nothing  more  than  his 

42 


PORTRAITS  OF  LINCOLN  43 

own  general  perception,  shallow  or  deep,  as 
the  case  may  be. 

On  my  wall  yonder  hangs  a  very  rare,  im- 
perial-size photographic  print  of  Mr.  Lincoln, 
one  of  about  half  a  dozen  that  were  copied, 
enlarged,  from  a  Brady  negative ;  and  then 
the  original  plate  and  all  other  copies  were 
destroyed  by  lire.  Mr.  Lincoln  was  evidently 
thinking  of  something  else  while  Mr.  Brady 
was  aiming  at  him;  and  therefore 'the  result 
was  excellent,  the  best  with  which  I  am  ac- 
quainted. There  may  be  others  as  good,  each 
of  them  giving  a  variation  belonging  to  an- 
other moment  of  time.  If  all,  of  every  name 
and  time,  were  gathered  by  some  patriotic  col- 
lector and  arranged  in  a  good  light  together, 
any  one  who  knew  Mr.  Lincoln  very  well 
might  pass  along  the  line  from  one  to  another, 
complimenting  each  in  turn,  yet  still  hunting 
in  vain  for  something  in  his  memory,  some- 
thing he  had  at  some  time  noted  as  he  looked 
into  the  living  face. 

Do  you  say  tliat  this  is  only  the  reiteration, 
the  application,  of  a  well-known  general  truth 
or  principle  of  art  ? 

No  doubt  you  are  right,  but  it  sometimes 
seems  a  cause  for  regret  that  future  students 
of  American  history  may  not  know  the  great 
President  better  by  means  of  some  presentation 


44  LINCOLN  AT  WORK 

of  his  face  as  it  appeared  Avhen  his  soul  was 
hard  at  work  and  his  brain  was  on  fire.  No 
artist  has  ever  caught  tiiat  expression,  and  the 
same  is  true,  indeed,  of  a  host  of  other  historic- 
ally notable  faces. 

Do  you  ask  me,  by  way  of  illustration, 
what  particular  moment  or  occasion  brought 
out  that  which  I  so  much  wish  had  been  pre- 
served ? 

I  was  thinking  of  that.  I  studied  his  face 
during  his  delivery  of  his  first  inaugural  ad- 
dress, at  the  eastern  front  of  the  Capitol  at 
Washington.  I  had  waited  during  several 
hours,  with  the  vast  throngs  growing  and 
surging  behind  me,  while  I  clung  vigorously 
to  the  position  I  had  preempted  in  the  front 
line  below,  to  be  as  near  as  possible.  Every 
change  of  his  intensely  earnest  features,  as  he 
spoke  so  eloquently  to  his  countrymen  and  to 
all  the  world,  would  have  been  worth  preserv- 
ing. Even  memory  cannot  keep  them  all, 
however,  and  I  know  what  the  portrait-paint- 
ers mean  by  their  doctrine  of  striking  an  aver- 
age and  melting  all  of  a  man's  many  faces  into 
one, — a  kind  of  facial  composite. 

I  can  remember  other  notable  occasions,  but 
they  were  not  connected  with  national  circum- 
stances to  such  a  degree  or  in  such  a  manner 
as  was  the  inaugural  address.     That  is,  with 


FORTRAirS  OF  LINCOLN  45 

one  exception.  ISTot  so  ver}^  long  after  that  I 
saw  upon  Mr.  Lincoln's  face  something  which 
even  a  photographic  artist  might  have  pre- 
served if  he  and  his  camera  had  been  there 
ready  for  instantaneous  action  and  without 
the  knowledge  of  Mr.  Lincoln. 

Do  you  remember  the  Sumter  gun,  the  first 
cannon  fired  at  the  Union  by  the  Confederacy, 
fired  in  the  harbor  of  Charleston,  S.  C,  against 
Fort  Sumter  ? 

Probably  you  did  not  hear  it.  Even  if  you 
did,  you  were  not  prepared  for  it  beforehand, 
and  did  not  know  what  it  meant.  Its  awful 
meaning  may  now  be  condensed  into  a  yery 
few  words.  The  President  and  his  advisers 
had  done  all  in  their  power  to  prevent  the 
coming  of  the  Civil  War,  but  their  efforts  had 
failed.  The  war  had  come  in  spite  of  them, 
and  its  public  announcement  was  to  begin  at 
Charleston,  by  the  cannon  which  thundered 
and  the  sliot  that  struck  at  half- past  four 
o'clock  on  the  morning  of  April  12,  1861. 

The  bombardment  of  the  fort  began  with 
that  firing,  but  the  news  of  it  did  not  reach 
Washington  until  many  hours  later.  The  fall 
of  the  fort  was  not  known  there  until  late  on 
Sunday,  the  fourteenth,  but  the  ink  was  al- 
ready dry  upon  the  President's  proclamation 
calling  the  Union  to  arms.     This  went  out  to 


46  LINCOLN  AT   WORK 

the  country,  by  mail  and  telegraph,  on  Sun- 
clay,  but  bore  date,  of  course,  as  of  the  fif- 
teenth, Monday. 

During  a  number  of  days  before  that  date  I 
had  not  once  been  at  the  AVhite  House.  I  had 
official  duties  elsewhere;  and  all  my  spare 
hours,  at  least,  had  been  spent  in  drilling  with 
a  "  crack  company,"  the  National  Rifles,  after- 
ward known  as  Company  A  in  a  battalion  of 
United  States  Volunteers.  I  had  now,  how- 
ever, an  errand  of  my  own  to  Mr.  Lincoln; 
and  I  went  to  perform  it  very  early  on  the 
morning  of  April  12.  I  had  a  favor  to  ask, 
and  I  knew  that  it  might  be  almost  impossible 
to  get  at  him  after  the  strong  tide  of  his  daily 
office-seekers  and  other  visitors  began  to  rise. 
I  reached  the  White  House,  and  my  latch-key 
let  me  in,  so  that  I  could  go  up-stairs  and  lie 
in  wait  to  catch  him  whenever  he  might  come 
over  from  his  breakfast  in  the  residence  part 
of  the  building. 

The  great  central  hall  on  the  second  floor 
extends  from  east  to  west  along  the  entire 
length  of  the  White  House.  It  is  cut  off  at 
each  wing  by  very  wide  folding  doors.  I 
posted  myself  inside  of  the  eastern  doors,  and 
walked  up  and  down  the  hall  and  in  and  out 
of  the  library.  I  was  standing  in  the  liall,  op- 
posite the  library  door,  when  the  western  fold- 


POBTBAITS  OF  LINCOLN  47 

ing  doors  came  suddenly  open.  They  were 
left  so,  for  Mr.  Lincoln  did  not  turn  to  close 
them  behind  him. 

Better  than  any  other  man  at  the  E"orth, 
probably,  he  knew  precisely  how  things  were 
going  on  at  Charleston.  He  also  knew  what 
the  consequences  must  be,  and  that  he  must 
soon  put  his  signature  to  the  war  proclamation 
already  lying  in  his  writing-desk  in  his  office 
over  yonder. 

He  came  through  the  doorway  very  slowly, 
a  step  at  a  time,  leaning  forward,  seeming  al- 
most to  stagger  as  he  came.  Slowly,  heavily, 
he  came  onward  into  the  hall,  giving  very 
much  the  impression  of  a  man  who  is  walking 
in  his  sleep  in  some  vague  and  terrible  dream. 
It  was  no  dream  to  him,  although  it  may  have 
been  a  prophetic  foresight,  a  statesman's  clear 
vision,  of  the  bloody  battle-fields  and  awful 
desolations  which  were  so  soon  to  come. 
Whatever  they  might  be,  he  must  himself  ap- 
pear to  take  the  responsibility  of  them  for  all 
time. 

His  strongly  marked,  resolute  features  wore 
a  drawn  and  gloomy  look,  and  there  were  dark 
patches  under  his  deeply  sunken  eyes.  These, 
too,  were  not  looking  at  me,  nor  were  they 
seeing  anything  else  in  the  broad  hallway  or 
the  further  passage.     They  were  intensely  gaz- 


48  LINCOLN  AT   WORK 

ing  at  something  far  away, — in  the  future,  it 
might  be, — and  he  paused  for  a  moment  in  the 
attitude  of  one  who  is  listening. 

The  artist  and  his  camera  should  have  been 
ready  just  then  to  take  a  priceless  portrait  of 
Abraham  Lincoln.  My  own  mind  and  memory 
Avere  taking  one  indelibly,  for  I  stood  stock-still 
a  few  feet  in  front  of  him.  As  he  turned  his 
head,  I  ventured  to  say,  "  Good  morning,  Mr. 
Lincoln." 

Xo  word  came  back  at  once,  although  the 
far-away  look  in  his  face  was  now  levelled  at 
my  own.  His  expression  did  not  change,  and 
I  was  almost  alarmed.  What  could  this 
mean  ? 

"  Why,  Mr.  Lincoln  !  You  don't  seem  to 
know  me ! " 

"  O  yes,  I  do,"  he  replied,  with  a  long- 
drawn  sigh  of  Litter  weariness.  "  You  are  Stod- 
dard.    What  is  it  ?  " 

"  I  wish  to  ask  a  favor." 

Xow  he  awoke  somewhat,  and  his  lips  pursed 
a  little  impatiently.  He  was  being  driven  al- 
most to  death  just  then  by  people  who  came 
to  him  to  ask  favors. 

"  Well,  well,  what  is  it  ?  " 

"  It 's  just  this,  Mr.  Lincoln  :  I  believe  there 
is  going  to  be  fighting  pretty  soon,  right  here, 
and  I  don't  feel  like  sitting  at  a  desk,  writing, 


PORTRAITS  OF  LINCOLN  49 

while  any  fig'lit  is  going  on.  I  've  been  drilling 
and  serving  guard  duty  witli  a  company  al- 
ready ;  and,  if  it 's  ordered  on  duty,  I  want  to 
go  with  it." 

"Well,  well,"  he  cut  me  short,  while  his 
gloomy  face  brightened  splendidly,  "  why 
don't  you  go  ?  " 

"  Why,  Mr.  Lincoln,  only  a  few  da^^s  ago  I 
took  a  pretty  big  oath  that  puts  me  under 
your  orders  ;  and  now  I  'm  likely  to  be  asked 
to  take  another  oath  to  obey  somebody  else. 
I  don't  see  how  I  can  manage  them  both  with- 
out your  permission.  I  may  be  ordered  to 
service  outside  of  the  District  of  Columbia." 

The  President  seemed  to  see  something  al- 
most comical  in  my  petition,  for  a  half-laugh 
was  taking  shape  on  his  countenance. 

"  Go  ahead  !  Go  ahead  !  "  he  said  to  me. 
"  Swear  in  !  Go  wherever  you  are  ordered  to 
go!" 

"  That 's  all  I  want,  Mr.  Lincoln." 

I  remember  feeling  greatly  relieved,  for  I 
was  a  young  fellow  then,  and  tremendously  in 
awe  of  the  President.  It  was  so  kindly  a 
thing  for  him  to  do,  you  know  ;  and  I  was 
turning  awa}^,  when  he  called  me  back  in  a 
voice  that  had  in  it  a  curious  kind  of  feeling. 

"  Young  man,"  he  said,  "  go  just  where  you 
are  ordered.     Do  your  duty,"  and  he  added 


50  LINCOLN  AT  WORK 

other  words  that  are  not  at  all  likely  to  be  for- 
gotten. 

Yery  quickly  I  was  out  in  the  open  air, 
thinking  more  about  him  than  about  anything 
or  anybody  else  ;  but  the  one  thing  I  did  not 
know  came  to  my  mind  before  Sunday, — Mr. 
Lincoln  had  been  listenino;  for  the  Sumter  o^un 
that  morning.  I  saw  him  at  about  eight 
o'clock,  three  and  a  half  hours  after  it  was 
fired.  Had  he  actually  heard  it,  do  you  sup- 
pose, at  that  distance  ?  Or  was  he  only  so  sure 
of  its  firing  that  he  Avas  going  over  to  his  of- 
fice to  call  out  the  militia  and  the  volunteers 
and  send  the  ships  to  sea?  At  all  events,  no 
portrait-painter  ever  had  a  better  opportunity 
to  do  something  famous  than  one  would  have 
who  could  transfer  to  canvas  the  weird,  lost, 
all  but  ghastly,  expression,  through  which, 
nevertheless,  a  strange  fire  of  courage  and 
determination  was  blazing,  as  the  President 
paused  in  the  dim  hallwa}^,  gazing  southward. 

My  company  of  volunteers,  with  a  first-rate 
West  Point  captain  to  handle  it,  was  sworn  in 
on  Monday  morning,  early.  It  was  the  very 
first  company  of  volunteers  sworn  in  any- 
where ;  and  I  went  off  to  do  soldier  duty  with 
it  for  three  months,  taking  occasional  fur- 
loughs for  brief  visits  to  the  White  House.  I 
had   obtained,  however,   on  that  Sumter-gun 


PORTRAITS  OF  LINCOLN  51 

morning,  the  first  and  only  favoz\  with  one  ex- 
ception much  like  it,  that  I  ever  asked  of 
Abraham  Lincoln. 

Do  you  ask  me  whether  I  can  think  of  any 
other  portrait  which  might  equal  that  one  ? 

I  have  thought  of  two  or  three  which  might 
well  hang  beside  it  in  the  great  gallery  of  a 
nation's  loving  memory,  but  who  shall  paint 
them  now?  It  is  of  no  use  to  talk  about  them. 
The  best  we  can  do  is  to  study  the  likenesses 
we  have,  with  our  eyes  shut,  striving  to  look 
through  them  and  beyond  them. 


\;S5'«  **"•«** 


u 


HAT'S  this  ?     Have  the  office-seek- 
ers  been  disorderly  ?     That 's  a 
new  one,  but  the  other  panes  in 
that  sash  look  as  if  they  had  been 
there  since  the  house  was  built." 

General  Leavenworth  and  I  were  standing 
by  the  window,  and  the  room  was  almost 
thronged  with  men  of  distinction,  legislators, 
armv  men,  and  others  who  were  waitino-  there 
their  turns  to  see  the  President.  He  and  sev- 
eral members  of  his  cabinet  were  in  his  own 
reception-room  adjoining. 

The  window  was  one  which  looked  south- 
ward, toward  the  Potomac,  and  across  the 
river  the  first  camps  of  the  Union  army  were 
forming,  and  the  first  forts  for  the  protection 
of  the  city  of  Washington  were  rapidly  con- 
structing. The  Civil  War  had  but  just  begun, 
and  it  was  something  very  terribly  new  to  us 
all. 

The  pane  of  glass  to  which  the  general 
called  my  attention  had  been  put  in  so  recently 
that  the  putty-marks  of  the  glazier's  work  had 
not  yet  been  cleaned  away.     It  was  therefore 

52 


A   FORGOTTEN  HERO  53 

a  new  pane,  and  was  really  noticeable  among 
the  old  ones,  for  almost  everything  about  the 
Executive  Mansion  in  those  days  carried  upon 
its  face  a  worn-out  and  ancient  character. 

"  General,"  I  replied,  after  looking  at  it  for 
a  moment,  "  I  think  I  will  tell  you  the  story 
that  belongs  to  the  breaking  of  that  pane  of 
glass.  Did  you  ever  know  Colonel  Ellsworth, 
of  the  Ellsworth  Zouaves  ?  " 

"  jSTo,"  said  the  general,  ''  I  never  even  saw 
him  ;  but  I  attended  his  funeral  in  this  house, 
in  the  East  Koom  last  week.  Wonderfully 
solemn  affair.  The  whole  nation  regrets  his 
death.  His  was  to  me  a  very  strange  fate.  So 
splendid  a  young  fellow.  So  full  of  promise. 
It  was  sad  to  think  of  his  dying  as  he  did,  on 
the  verv  threshold  of  this  horrible  war.  He 
seemed  to  die  so  uselessly,  too." 

"  Yes,"  I  said,  "his  was  the  first  blood  to  be 
shed  when  our  army  marched  into  Virginia. 
A  good  many  more  must  die  before  long,  on 
both  sides.  I  was  with  my  own  company  that 
night,  over  yonder.  We  were  the  first  battal- 
ion to  cross  the  Potomac,  by  the  Long  Bridge. 
I  served  as  a  scout  in  the  advance." 

"  I  wish  I  had  been  there,"  he  said.  "  I 
wish  I  might  be  in  the  first  battle  that  is  to  be 
fought.  What  has  that  and  what  has  Ells- 
worth's death  to  do  with  the  smashing  of  this 


54  LINCOLN  AT  WORK 

pane  of  glass  ?  Who  broke  it,  and  what  did 
he  do  it  for  ?  '* 

"  Ellsworth  himself  broke  it,"  I  told  him. 
"  Just  one  week  ago  to-day.  He  did  it  with 
that  rifle   that  stands  in  the  corner  3^onder." 

"  How  was  it  ?  "  exclaimed  the  general  and 
others  who  had  drawn  nearer. 

"This  is  not  my  room,"  I  said;  "it  is  Mr. 
Nicolay's  and  John  Hay's.  I  do  not  belong 
here.  My  desk  is  in  the  northeast  room, 
across  the  hall.  Last  Sunday  morning  I  ob- 
tained a  few  hours  of  leave  of  absence  from 
Major  Smead  of  our  battalion,  and  I  came  here 
to  get  the  news  and  find  out  how  things  were 
going  on.  When  I  got  here,  the  house  was  as 
good  as  empty.  The  President  and  Mrs.  Lin- 
coln were  at  church.  The  two  private  secre- 
taries, IN^icolay  and  Hay,  were  away  some- 
where. Even  Willie  and  little  Tad  were  said 
to  be  at  church.  It  was  a  hot  day,  but  the 
house  seemed  dark  and  gloomy.  It's  a  blue 
time,  anyway.  I  waited,  for  I  was  anxious  to 
see  somebody  and  have  something  to  tell  the 
boys. 

"  I  came  into  this  room,  and  I  stood  about 
where  I  am  standing  now,  looking  at  the  flags 
over  yonder,  across  the  river.  I  heard  a  kind 
of  hurrah  behind  me;  and,  when  I  swung 
around,  there  was  Ellsworth.     He  was  almost 


A   FORGOTTEN  HERO  55 

like  a  member  of  the  President's  own  family. 
He  was  in  from  camp  after  news,  just  as  I  was, 
and  to  see  the  White  House  people.  He  was 
the  noisiest,  merriest,  liveliest,  and  one  of  the 
handsomest  young  fellows  I  can  think  of.  He 
was  full  of  fun  and  fire  and  animation.  Be- 
sides his  tremendous  physical  energy,  he  was 
boiling  over  with  ambition  and  patriotism,  and 
he  was  a  keen  thinker.  I  had  an  idea  that  he 
would  soon,  be  a  general  and  have  command  of 
one  of  the  Union  armies.  I  knew  that  he 
fully  expected  such  a  result  himself.  We  went 
on  into  all  sorts  of  war  talk,  for  it  was  ex- 
pected that  Virginia  would  secede  in  three 
days  and  bring  the  new  Confederacy  one  State 
nearer  AVashington  and  the  Potomac.  Close 
upon  the  heels  of  that  would  surely  come  im- 
portant movements,  and  we  expected  to  have 
our  parts  in  them. 

"  Something  or  other  led  Ellsworth  to  go 
and  pick  up  that  rifle.  It  is  one  of  the  new 
patterns.  He  was  a  perfect  drill-master  and 
a  kind  of  machine  for  accuracy  in  the  Zouave 
manual  of  arms.  It  was  a  genuine  pleasure 
for  me  to  put  him  through  the  manual,  and 
watch  the  wonderful  exactness  of  his  every 
movement.  In  obedience  to  my  orders  he 
stepped  around  here  and  there,  and  I  had  him 
facing  this  window,  very  near  it,  'svhen  I  said. 


56 


LINCOLN  AT   WORK 


'  Aim  ! '  Up  came  the  rifle  mechanically,  and 
the  muzzle  went  crashing  through  that  pane  of 
glass." 


1 

^^■.iwr- 


''The  muzzle  went  crashing  through  that  pane." 

"  I  declare  !  "  exclaimed  General  Leaven- 
worth. "  I  do  n't  know  Avhy  I  had  any  curios- 
ity about  it.     What  did  you  boys  have  to  say 


A   FORGOTTEN  HERO  57 

about  your  carrying  on,  when  the  President 
found  his  Avindow  broken?" 

"He  didn't  say  anything.  We  had  no 
chance  to  explain  to  him,"  I  replied.  "  Do  you 
remember  how  it  was  said  they  meant  to  mur- 
der Mr.  Lincoln  at  Baltimore,  when  he  came 
on  to  be  inaugurated  ?  " 

"  It 's  my  opinion  that  they  came  very  near 
doing  it,  too,"  said  the  general.  "  I  've  heard 
of  other  plans  and  plots.  The  fact  is,  I  be- 
lieve he  is  in  danger  all  the  while.  He  will  be 
assassinated  some  day." 

''  There  are  a  good  many  who  think  so,"  I 
told  him.  "We  feel  more  than  a  little  anxiety 
about  it.  If  he  were  to  be  murdered  just 
now,  everything  would  go  all  to  pieces.  It 
would  murder  the  Union  itself." 

"  Just  so  !  Just  so  !  "  exclaimed  he.  "  But 
what  has  that  to  do  with  Ellsworth  and  his 
rifle  and  the  pane  of  glass  ?  " 

"  Well,  nothing  in  particular,"  I  said  ;  "  but 
he  tried  to  cook  up  a  yarn  about  some  fellow 
hiding  in  the  shrubbery  down  there.  It  was  a 
lurking  assassin  who  mistook  one  of  us  for  Mr. 
Lincoln,  and  blazed  away.  The  bullet  missed 
the  President,  and  only  smashed  the  glass." 

"  I  did  n't  hear  of  any  such  story,"  he  inter- 
rupted doubtfully.  "  It  did  n't  get  out,  or  it 
would  have  been  in  the  newspapers." 


58  LINCOLN  AT  WORK 

"  Of  course  it  would,"  said  I ;  "  but  it  had  n't 
a  chance  to  get  out.  Ellsworth  broke  down 
the  first  time  he  tried  to  tell  it.  He  couldn't 
keep  his  face  straight  long  enough  to  humbug 
anybody.  There  was  too  much  laugh  in  him. 
He  went  back  to  his  camp,  and  I  went  to  mine. 

"  It 's  only  a  week  ago.  I  can  hardly  believe 
that  he  is  gone,  shot  in  that  old  Alexandria 
tavern  for  pulling  down  a  Confederate  flag.  I 
don't  like  to  think  of  it,  that  I  shall  never  see  his 
pleasant  face  or  hear  his  ringing  laugh  again." 

"  My  dear  fellow,"  responded  Leavenworth, 
"so  will  thousands  upon  thousands  have  to 
say  before  a  great  while.  This  is  to  be  a  long 
war  and  bloody.  He  will  be  forgotten  pretty 
soon,  for  there  will  be  so  many  other  dead 
heroes." 

So  he  and  I,  for  we  were  old  friends,  talked 
on  for  a  while,  and  then  I  got  away  to  my 
soldier  comrade,  taking  with  me  whatever 
news  I  had  gathered. 

It  was  long  before  I  was  again  a  regular 
worker  at  mv  desk  in  the  White  House.  I 
forgot  all  about  Ellsworth's  pane  of  glass 
until  one  day,  after  Grant  became  president, 
I  saw^  it  there,  and  the  old  story  came  back  to 
me.  I  was  thinking  of  it  when  a  summons 
came  from  President  Grant  to  meet  him  in  the 
library.     Very  likely  the  unmarked  pane  is  in 


A   FORGOTTEN  HERO  59 

the  window  yet ;  but,  if  the  glass  is  gone,  the 
lesson  of  it  has  not  departed. 

The  mark  of  Ellsworth's  blood  upon  the 
threshold  of  the  Civil  War  has  with  it  a  kind 
of  interrogation  point.  What  is  it  that  is 
worth  the  blood  of  men  ?  What  is  it  that 
ma}^  justly  call  for  the  sacrifice  of  life  ? 

There  are  such  things.  The  Union  was  a 
treasure  worth  dying  for.  The  breaking  up 
of  the  awful  tyranny  of  Spain  in  the  West 
Indies  was  of  the  full  value  of  the  precious 
blood  that  was  shed.  The  history  of  those 
islands  will  forever  witness  that  our  brave 
boys  were  not  thrown  away  upon  a  causeless 
war.     They  did  not  die  in  vain. 

Those  who  were  in  active  life  during  the 
Civil  War  saw  our  volunteers  march  to  the 
front,  year  after  year,  "  three  hundred  thou- 
sand more,"  from  call  to  call,  to  pay  the  price 
w4iich  was  demanded  for  the  nation's  life.  Our 
Southern  brethren  passed  through  a  similar 
experience.  The  dead  who  bravely,  unselfishly 
gave  up  their  lives  were  very  many.  Never- 
theless, as  General  Leavenw^orth  predicted, 
Ellsworth  is  almost  forgotten,  and  in  this  he 
becomes  also  a  type  and  representative  of  hun- 
dreds of  thousands  of  all  the  unnamed  heroes 
so  eloquently  described  by  Mr.  Lincoln  him- 
self in  his  Gettysburg  speech. 


oom 


O  me  there  is  no  other  such  window 
in  America  as  this ;  for  at  that 
desk  right  here  all  the  presidents 
of  the  United  States,  since  the  days 
of  John  Adams,  have  written  or  signed  their 
great  state  papers,  vetoes,  messages  to  Con- 
gress, and  declarations  of  war  or  peace.  Do 
you  notice  that,  sitting  at  that  desk,  you  may 
look  out  toward  the  South  ?  The  Emancipa- 
tion Proclamation  was  written  there.  I  re- 
member when  the  original  draft  of  that  his- 
toric document  was  brought  over  from  this 
desk  to  m}^  own  table  that  I  might  make  the 
first  copies  of  it.  You  can  imagine  how  my 
fingers  tingled  and  how  the  perceptions  of 
its  tremendous  consequences  came  pouring 
through  my  brain.  Xot  many  days  later, 
all  the  nation  was  tingling,  and  Europe  also, 
while  a  new  life  began  for  our  millions  of 
freed  men. 

Down  yonder  is  the  Potomac,  and  the  high 
ground  beyond  is  Arlington  Heights ;  and  over 
that  white  residence  that  crowns  them  a  Con- 

60 


THE  DARK   WORK-ROOM  61 

federate  flag  was  floating  in  the  spring  of 
1861  until  the  very  hour  when  the  first  Union 
army  marched  across  Long  Bridge,  which  you 
can  see  from  here.  The  Marine  Band  in  their 
scarlet  uniforms  are  playing  in  the  grounds  to- 
day, and  there  are  groups  of  listeners  and 
strollers  everywhere  among  the  walks  and 
shrubbery.  It  is  really  brilliant  out-of-doors 
this  pleasant  day  in  summer,  but  somehow  it 
seems  dark  in  this  workroom  of  the  presidents. 
Mr.  Lincoln  has  gone  over  to  the  war  office 
to  read  the  despatches  from  General  Grant  at 
Yicksburg  and  from  General  Meade  away  up 
in  Maryland.  Lee  is  over  the  border,  and  a 
great  battle  is  to  be  fought  within  a  few  days. 
Xobodv  knows  beforehand  what  will  be  the 
result  of  a  great  battle.  The  only  certain 
thing  is  that  a  great  many  thousands  of  men 
who  are  marching  vigorously  to-day,  or  talk- 
ing and  laughing  at  their  halting-places,  will 
be  stark  and  cold  in  a  week.  Thousands  more 
will  be  suffering  and  groaning  in  the  hospitals, 
and  I  sometimes  almost  believe  that  the  Presi- 
dent hears  them  and  suffers  with  them.  He 
has  to  make  an  effort,  I  know,  not  to  think  of 
it,  or  of  the  mourning  mothers  and  wives  and 
children  in  so  many  homes.  He  will  be  back 
here  pretty  soon,  but  you  will  have  time  to 
look  around  you. 


62  LINCOLN  AT   WORK 

All  the  furniture  is  plain  and  old-fashioned. 
That  long  table  in  the  middle  is  the  cabinet 
council-table,  and  any  number  of  notable  men 
have  sat  around  it,  discussing  the  affairs  of  the 
nation  and  of  the  world.  The  spring-roller 
maps  over  there  in  that  tall  rack  are  very  con- 
venient for  the  study  of  all  the  military  dis- 
tricts ;  but  here  on  the  President's  writing- 
desk  is  one  that  he  makes  more  use  of.  To- 
day it  is  a  map,  two  feet  square,  of  West  Vir- 
ginia, upper  Maryland,  and  part  of  Penn- 
sylvania. The  little  tacks  with  different- 
colored  sealing-wax  heads  that  are  stuck  all 
over  it  are  to  -enable  him  to  mark  and  follow 
the  positions  of  the  several  parts  of  both 
armies.  I  do  not  know  why  so  many  pins  of 
both  colors  are  stuck  so  closely  in  the  neigh- 
borhood of  the  village  of  Gettysburg.  We 
have  no  forts  there,  and  the  place  itself  is  of 
no  manner  of  importance.  It  has  no  history. 
The  President  sits  here,  now  and  then,  until 
late  at  night,  working  with  these  pins  ;  and 
sometimes  the  blue-headed  pins  have  had  to 
be  moved  back  unpleasantly  or  pulled  out  al- 
together. ]^o  American  president  has  had  as 
yet  much  reason  for  studying  maps  of  the  Old 
World.  We  have  no  army  posts  outside  of 
the  boundaries  of  the  United  States  ;  but  we 
may  have  some  day,  for   our  frontiers  have 


THE  DARK    WORK-ROOM 


63 


been  pushed  forward  wonderfully  since  they 
Avere  first  half-surveyed,  westward,  northwest- 
ward, and  southward. 

" Late  at  nioiit  ?  "  did  vou  ask  ?  "What  are 
Mr.  Lincoln's  hours  of  labor  ?  "  All  the  hours 
between  sleep  and  sleep,  I  should  say  ;  and  the 
bedtime  hours  are  a  kind  of  candle  that  burns 


The  President  and  the  Pins. 

at  both  ends.  Sometimes,  when  I  have  had  to 
come  to  my  own  work  unusually  early,  I  have 
looked  in  here  and  seen  him  already  busy  at 
something  or  other.  More  than  once,  when  I 
went  away  very  late  at  night,  the  light  in  his 
room  was  still  burning.  He  may  not  have 
been  at  work  exactly,  for  I  remember  some 
nights  when  all  he  did  was  to  walk  up  and 


64  LINCOLN  AT   WORK 

down  the  room.  For  all  I  know,  however,  he 
may  even  then  have  been  thinking  about  some- 
thmof  or  other,  or  snfferino^. 

One  reason  whv  there  cannot  be  anv  reo^u- 
laritv  about  the  President's  workino:  arrang-e- 
ments  is  the  number  and  kind  of  the  other 
workshops  and  workmen.  A  mile  away  on 
Capitol  Hill  is  one  tremendous  concern,  and 
the  President  is  a  working  member  of  both 
the  Senate  and  the  House  of  Representatives. 
Every  great  newspaper  seems  to  consider  him 
its  Washington  correspondent  and  news-pur- 
veyor. 

All  around  here,  close  at  hand,  are  the 
others.  The  treasurv  does  not  trouble  him 
so  very  much,  for  he  does  not  pretend  to  be 
a  financier.  The  attornev-o-eneral's  office  is 
worse ;  the  state  department,  with  more  busi- 
ness, gives  him  less  anxiety,  because  of  that 
great  statesman,  William  H.  Seward.  The 
navy  office  is  a  part  of  this,  and  we  owe  Mr. 
Lincoln  for  the  Western  river,  tin-clad  gun- 
boats, and  for  that  curious  innovation,  the 
Monitor.  The  war  office  is  worst  of  all,  and 
has  been  from  the  beo-innino:.  It  seems  to 
open  right  into  this  room;  and  all  the  generals 
do  their  work  under  the  eve  of  Mr.  Lincoln, 
but   not  to  anv  extent   under  his  directions. 

ft.' 

He   never  hampers  or  meddles  with   a  com- 


THE  DARK   WORK-BOO?!  65 

mander  in  the  field.  If,  however,  he  finds 
any  general  to  be  too  moderately  successful 
an  experiment,  he  may  put  another  man  in 
his  place. 

The  sleeping-apartments  of  the  Executive 
]Vlansion  are  off  there,  westerly,  so  that  the 
President  does  not  actually  have  to  leave  shop 
when  he  goes  to  bed.  All  the  reception- 
rooms,  large  and  small,  are  down-stairs.  Even 
those  occasionally  turn  into  workshops,  and 
compel  him  to  spend  long,  toilsome  evenings 
in  shaking  hands  with  the  United  States  and 
other  countries.  Hardly  one  of  these  even- 
ings ever  passes  without  some  energetic  soul's 
finding  an  opportunity  to  offer  him  a  criticism 
upon  his  other  performances.  Some  of  them 
are  kindlv  meant  and  encouras-ino^,  too. 

Are  there  never  anv  breaks  ?  Does  he 
never  get  a  breathing-spell  ?  Yes,  sometimes ; 
but  thev  are  verv  short  ones,  such  as  thev  are. 
I  can  think  of  a  fair  illustration  just  now. 

My  room  is  over  there  in  the  northeast  cor- 
ner of  the  building,  across  the  hall  from  Mr. 
Kicolay's  and  Mr.  Hay's,  the  private  secre- 
taries' office.  They  are  a  terribly  hard- worked 
pair  of  young  men,  and  Mr.  Lincoln  showed 
his  usual  good  judgment  and  acumen  when  he 
picked  them  out  for  their  exceedingly  delicate 
and  responsible  positions.    They  grew  up  under 


66  LIXCOLX  AT  WOBE 

his  eye  in  Illinois,  and  he  knew  pretty  well 
what  was  in  them. 

Come  over,  and  I'll  show  vou  how  it  was. 
That  massive  chest  of  drawers,  the  office  table, 
facing  the  door  is  the  correspondence-desk,  and 
that  is  mv  chair,  behind.  Thomas  Jefferson 
was  the  inventor  of  that  kind  of  swing-around 
armchair.  Between  the  outer  end  of  the  table 
and  the  fireplace  is  a.  very  different  chair.  It 
is  oddly  designed,  sloping  backward,  with  a 
slender  mahoc^anv  frame  and  a  leather  seat 
without  anv  cushions.  It  is  of  ^Eexican  make, 
and  was  presented  to  President  Jackson  by 
grateful  citizens  of  our  sister  republic  in  recog- 
nition of  his  friendlv  course  in  their  behalf. 
It  became  so  great  a  favorite  with  the  old 
hero  that  ever  afterward  it  has  been  known 
as  "  Andrew  Jackson's  chair."  It  is  worth  its 
weight  in  gold,  but  it  will  one  day  be  sent 
away  as  old  junk  by  the  upholsterers  who  will 
furnish  the  White  House. 

I  sat  behind  my  table  here  one  evening,  and 
Mr.  xsicolay  sat  in  that  other  chair,  a  little 
behind  me  at  the  left.  At  the  fireplace,  with 
one  elbow  on  the  mantel,  stood  John  Hay. 
He  was  always  the  life  of  any  place  he  ever 
got  into,  and  he  was  telling  us  a  story  of  the 
liveliest  kind.  That  was  a  thing,  too,  that  he 
could  do  remarkably  well ;  and  he  had  a  laup^h 


THE  DARK    WORK-ROOM  67 

of  his  own  that  was  catchinof.  He  and  I  had 
been  alone  in  the  room  when  he  began  to  telL 
that  storv,  and  at  the  first  of  its  humorous 
points  we  both  broke  down.  That  is,  we  both 
broke  out  into  peals  of  laughter,  'which  to 
some  men  might  have  seemed  out  of  place, 
not  in  keeping  with  the  solemn  gloom  of  the 
AVhite  House  at  night,  in  war  time.  To  tell 
the  truth,  we  had  not  supposed  that  there  was 
anybody  else  awake  in  this  part  of  the  build- 
ing. 

Air.  Xicolay  was  at  his  desk  across  the  hall, 
however;  and  he  at  once  put  down  his  pen 
and  came  over  to  find  out  what  was  going  on. 
Of  course  the  story  had  to  begin  again,  and  it 
went  on  as  if  there  were  no  ghosts  of  lost 
battles  stalking  dismally  along  the  shadowed 
corridors  of  the  national  headquarters.  The 
funny  point  was  reached  a  second  time,  and 
again  the  peals  of  recldess  merriment  went 
out  to  startle  the  proprieties,  if  they  had  been 
there. 

"John,  just  tell  that  story  over  again.  I 
want  to  hear  it." 

The  hall  door  had  opened  silently,  and  in 
walked  President  Lincoln,  his  dark  face  brio^ht- 
ening  with  a  smile  of  relief.  Down  he  sat, 
right  there,  in  Andrew  Jackson's  chair,  and 
stretched  himself  out  to  hear  the  story.     For 


68 


LINCOLN  AT  WORK 


once,  you  see,  he  had  gone  all  the  "way  out  of 
his  Avorkshop,  leaving  ev^en  his  tools  behind 
him  ;  and  none  of  the  other  workmen,  states- 


**JOHN,    JUST  TELL   THAT  STORY  OVER  AGAIN." 

men  or  generals,  were  anywhere  near.  He  was 
hiding  away  in  a  sort  of  place  of  refuge,  ever 
so  far  away  from  councils  and  camps  and 
battle-fields. 


THE  DARK  WORK-ROOM  69 

John  Hay  did  not  stir  from  his  post  at  the 
mantel,  and  he  began  at  the  beginning,  doing 
it  better  than  ever.  That  same  first  ludicrous 
climax  was  reached,  and  neither  of  us  boys 
laughed  more  unrestrainedly  than  did  the 
President.  His  feet  came  heavily  down  upon 
the  floor,  and  he  lay  away  back  in  Andrew 
Jackson's  chair.  The  laughter  was  checked  at 
last,  and  the  narrative  had  just  begun  again, 
when  the  half-closed  door  from  the  hall  was 
pushed  open  widely. 

"  Your  Excellency,  it's  Mr.  Seward.  He's 
gone  into  your  room,  sir.  I  think  it  is  Mr. 
Stanton,  too,  and  a  gineral  with  him.  May 
be  it's  Gineral  Hallick,  that's  coming  up  the 
stairs."  There  stood  old  Edward  Moran,  the 
doorkeeper,  rubbing  his  hands  one  over  the 
other  and  looking  almost  comically  regretful 
and  apologetic.  He  was  the  last  man  to  in- 
terrupt fun  willingly,  but  his  duty  compelled 
him. 

Mr.  Lincoln  sat  still  for  a  moment,  all  the 
merriment  first,  and  then  the  light,  fading  out 
of  his  face.  Then  he  slowly  rose  without  say- 
ing a  word,  and  walked  out  across  the  hall  to 
his  workroom.  It  did  seem  as  if  he  all  but 
staggered,  as  a  man  might  in  shouldering  some- 
what unexpectedly,  suddenly,  some  oppressive, 
overweighting  burden.     We  three  were  also 


70  LIXCOLX  AT   WORK 

silent,  looking  at  one  another.  'Who  might 
guess  what  news  of  good  or  evil  had  brought 
to  the  President's  oflBce  at  that  hour  the  men 
who  had  been  announced  bv  old  Edward  ? 

The  breathing-spell,  the  respite  from  pain 
and  toil,  was  at  all  events  ended.  It  was  of 
the  usual  pattern,  nevertheless.  The  story- 
was  never  finished,  for  Mr.  ^Xicolay  went  back 
to  his  own  room,  and  Mr.  Hay  went  with  him, 
and  I  still  had  work  on  mv  table  that  must  be 
completed  before  sleep. 


^^^■ik^ 


(^34t:?^ 


"  ?^^^^HAT*S  the  Tvav,  is  it,  that  rou  deal 
"^  ^1?  with  the  President's  mail  ?  This 
is  shameful  I  Mr.  Lincoln  ought 
to  know  this  !  A  mere  boy,  too, 
to  be  given  such  a  responsible  position !  " 

He  was  a  very  portly  old  gentleman,  fine- 
lookino:  and  exceedins^lv  dio^nified.  He  was, 
from  his  appearance,  such  a  man  as  might  be 
governor  of  a  State,  for  instance,  or  president 
of  a  great  railway  company.  He  had  been  sit- 
tinof  there,  in  Andrew  Jackson's  chair,  as  it 
was  called,  near  mv  table  in  the  northeast  room 
of  the  ^Vhite  House,  durino^  a  full  half-hour. 


He  had  been 


waitmg 


his 


turn 


to  2:0  in  for  a 


conference  of  some  sort  with  the  President. 
A  number  of  other  visitors  had  been  admitted 
one  after  another ;  but  as  yet  he  had  not  been 
sent  for,  and  even  that  may  have  iiTitated 
him. 

At  all  events,  not  having  anything  else  to 
do  then  and  there,  he  had  been  keenly  watch- 
ing the  swift,  decisive  processes  of  opening  and 
disposing  of  the  Executive  Mansion  mail.  He 
had  even  seen  the  post-office  messenger  deliver 

71 


72  LINCOLN  AT   WORK 

a  full  bag  of  it,  large  parcels  and  small,  pour- 
ing them  out  upon  the  table  before  me.  Then 
he  had  seen  that  every  envelope  came  open  as 
soon  as  it  was  reached,  whether  addressed  to 
Mr.  Lincoln  himself  or  to  his  wife. 

It  might  possibly  be  that  at  some  time  or 
other  he  himself  had  sent  important  communi- 
cations to  be  handled  in  like  manner.  At  all 
events,  a  great  many  thousands  of  his  fellow 
citizens  must  have  done  so,  in  utter  ignorance 
of  this  merciless  business  going  on  at  the  cor- 
respondence-table. He  could  feel  for  others, 
if  not  for  himself,  and  his  face  had  grown  red 
with  indignation  while  Andrew  Jackson's 
chair  was  becoming  almost  too  small  to  hold 
him. 

On  either  side  of  the  secretary's  chair  were 
tall  willow-ware  wastebaskets,  and  into  one  or 
the  other  of  these  had  gone  a  very  large  pro- 
portion of  the  epistles,  envelopes  and  all,  with- 
out note  or  comment,  the  instant  that  their 
character  was  ascertained.  Beyond,  near  the 
wall,  in  a  large  and  growing  heap,  were  thrown 
upon  the  floor  all  manner  of  newspapers  and 
journalistic  clippings  after  very  hurried  glances 
at  any  part  of  their  columns  marked  black,  red, 
or  blue  to  demand  especial  attention.  Possibly 
the  old  gentleman  may  at  some  time  have  writ- 
ten a  stunning  editorial  or  printed  an  import- 


WRITING    TO   THE  PRESIDENT  73 

ant  letter.  Upon  the  table  itself  lay  an  array 
of  large  official  envelopes  with  printed  ad- 
dresses. Into  one  or  another  of  these,  every 
minute  or  so,  was  thrust  some  document  upon 
which  the  secretary  had  written  a  brief  in- 
dorsement, indicating  some  bureau  or  other 
destination.  Some  of  these  envelopes  were 
already  sealed  now,  ready  to  send  away. 

The  watcher  had  been  also  watched,  for  he 
was  not  by  any  means  the  first  of  a  number  of 
angry  critics  to  occupy  a  chair  of  indignant 
observation  in  the  neighborhood  of  those  waste- 
baskets.  A  kind  of  preparation  had  been  made 
for  him  as  the  letter-opening  went  on.  A 
number  of  writino^s,  selected  as  thev  came  to 
hand,  and  of  even  exceptionally  strong  charac- 
teristics, had  been  laid  aside  like  so  much  fixed 
ammunition. 

Down  came  his  feet,  in  a  moment  more,  with 
a  thumping  force,  and  he  stood  erect,  glaring 
at  the  secretary. 

"  I  don't  believe  Mr.  Lincoln  can  be  at  all 
aware  of  this  — — " 

"  Sir,"  I  said  to  him  calmly,  "  will  you  be 
good  enough  to  examine  that  lot  of  letters  for 
yourself  ?  I  shoukl  be  glad  to  have  your 
opinion  as  to  whether  or  not  the  President  of 
the  United  States  can  turn  aside  from  his  some- 
what important  public  duties  and  give  his  time 


74 


LINCOLN  AT   WORK 


to  that  sort  of  tliino^.     I  can  assure  you  that  he 
is  really  quite  busy  nowadays." 

The  dignified  old  gentleman  took  the  se- 
lected epistles,  sat  down  again,  and  began  to 
read  them,  while  I  returned  to  my  work  with 
one  eye  at  liberty.     If  his  face  had  been  red 


•  •  '  /I  I 


*'I   DON'T  BELIEVE  MR.    LINCOLN   CAN   BE   AT   ALL  AWARE 

OF  THIS." 


before,  it  was  fiercely  blazing  now,  for  he  was 
undoubtedly  a  decent  man  and  a  patriot. 

Abuse,  scurrility,  threats,  utter  insanities, 
the  brutalities,  enmities,  and  infamies  of  the 
President's  letter-bag  had  been  pitilessly  given 
him.  It  was  too  much  for  him,  altogether. 
He  positively  could  not  wade  on  through  the 
whole  of  that  stuflp.  He  threw  it  contemptu- 
ously  upon   the   floor,    exclaiming :    "  Young 


WHITING    TO   THE  PRESIDENT  75 

man,  you  are  right !  ^o,  sir.  What  beasts 
men  are !  They  ought  to  be  shot  or  hung ! 
The  President  ought  not  to  be  bothered  with 
it !  Does  this  sort  of  thing  go  on  all  the 
time  ?  " 

It  might  be  really  worth  while  to  explain 
the  matter  somewhat,  and  I  did  so.  He  be- 
came deeply  interested,  and  Avas  entirely  rea- 
sonable. He  agreed  with  me  that  the  com- 
mander-in-chief could  not  be  expected  to  give 
a  personal  examination  to  an  average  mail  of 
two  hundred  and  fifty  parcels  a  day,  of  all 
sorts  and  sizes,  many  of  them  really  weighty 
bundles  of  documents  pertaining  to  varied 
business  before  the  several  departments. 

There  were  other  points  in  my  defence; 
The  President  had  absolutely  refused  to  be  in- 
formed of  letters  which  threatened  personal 
violence.  I  was  never  permitted  so  much  as 
to  mention  one  of  these,  or,  in  fact,  any  other 
communication  which  did  not  imperatively  and 
be^^ond  all  question  demand  his  personal  in- 
spection. Of  course,  when  in  doubt,  I  might 
consult  Mr.  Nicolay  or  Mr.  Hay.  There  had 
been  occasions,  necessarily,  when  I  went  to 
him  myself  with  seemingly  unavoidable  docu- 
ments, and  once  I  had  got  myself  laughed  at 
for  the  angry  interest  I  had  taken.  He  was, 
however,  about  the  coolest  man  living,  so  far 


76  LINCOLN  AT   WORK 

as  any  ordinary  cause  for  irritation  might  be 
concerned,  and  he  cared  absolutely  nothing  at 
all  for  mere  vituperations,  even  from  high 
quarters. 

The  dignified  old  gentleman  grew  pleasanter, 
even  sociable,  before  he  was  summoned  by  a 
messenger  to  go  in  and  have  his  own  turn  with 
the  President ;  but  he  had  looked  in  upon  a  very 
curious  department  of  American  literature. 

Perhaps  the  first  impression  received  by  one 
attempting  an  exhaustive  analysis  of  that  heap 
of  correspondence,  all  on  one  side,  might  relate 
to  the  extreme  simplicity  of  the  ideas  enter- 
tained by  vast  numbers  of  men  and  women  as 
to  their  right  to  the  personal  services  of  a  man 
in  Mr.  Lincoln's  place.  Here,  for  instance, 
was  a  worthy  soul  out  West,  who  had  applied 
for  a  patent,  and  would  be  obliged  if  the  Pres- 
ident would  step  into  the  patent  office  and  see 
about  it  and  hurry  the  matter  up.  Another 
writer  had  somehow  been  beaten  in  a  lawsuit 
before  the  courts  of  his  localitv,  and  wished  to 
obtain  advice  from  Mr.  Lincoln  as  to  whether 
or  not  it  would  be  worth  while  for  him  to 
bring  it  before  the  Supreme  Court. 

Not  a  few  of  the  letters  related  to  asserted 
remarkable  improvements  in  guns,  cannons, 
and  other  war  materials.  Not  least  notable 
among  these,  it  may  be,  vras  a  man  in  Illinois 


WRITING   TO    THE  PBESIDENT  77 

who  wrote  that  he  had  inventecl  a  cross-eyed 
gun.  It  had  two  barrels  which  projected  from 
the  breech  at  proper  angles,  so  amiing  side- 
Avise.  He  knew,  he  said,  enough  cross-eyed 
men  to  form  a  regiment  to  be  armed  with 
these  destructive  weapons.  He  could  march 
them  up  the  Potomac,  clearing  out  the  Con- 
federates from  both  banks  at  once,  "for,  by 
thunder,  Mr.  Lincoln,  I'm  cross-eyed  enough 
to  be  the  colonel." 

This  queer  fellow's  proposition  was  quite  as 
valuable  as  were  a  great  many  others  that 
were  urged  upon  the  government.  His  tactics, 
too,  were  as  good  as  were  those  of  a  host  of 
army-campaign  plans  that  were  submitted.  A 
principal  feature  of  most  of  these  seemed  to 
be  the  author's  idea  that  the  Southern  States 
were  a  checker-board,  and  that  across  it,  to 
and  fro,  army  corps  and  the  like  might  be 
jumped  and  landed  irrespective  of  their  sizes 
and  of  such  things  as  intervening  mountains 
and  rivers,  almost  regardless,  also,  of  armed 
gatherings  of  riflemen  in  uniforms  of  gray  or 
butternut.  A  like  idea  lives  to-day,  evidently, 
in  the  minds  of  countless  critics  of  the  current 
military  operations  in  the  Philippines. 

Here,  on  this  inside  corner  of  my  table,  lies, 
one  day,  a  letter  which  I  can  hardly  make  up 
my  mind  to  destroy.     No,  it  is  not  especially 


78  LINCOLN  AT   WORK 

important ;  but  I  really  believe  Mr.  Lincoln 
must  see  it.  It  is  a  pretty  long  letter,  too, 
written  clearly  in  a  T^'oman's  hand.  There  are 
careless  ink  spatters.  There  are  several  blis- 
tered places,  as  if  it  had  been  sprinkled  with 
hot  water.  The  woman  has  lost  all  her  sons. 
They  all  died  in  battle,  and  she  is  left  alone. 
She  is  one  of  many  American  mothers,  too, 
very  many  !  But  she  writes  to  Mr.  Lincoln 
that  she  is  praying  for  him  day  and  night,  and 
for  the  Union.  Yes,  I  must,  I  will  take  it  in 
to  him  myself  by  and  by. 

Did  I  do  so  ?  ^  AVhat  did  he  say  ? 

Well,  I  cannot  remember  exactly  what  I 
said  when  I  handed  him  that  letter;  but  I 
knew,  like  a  flash,  that  he  wanted  me  to  get 
out  of  his  room  and  back  to  mv  own  while  he 
read  it  alone  by  himself.  Perhaps  he  saw 
somethino'  wet  on  my  face :  I  don't  know. 
He  never  said  anything  to  me  about  it  after- 
ward. It  was  only  a  specimen  letter,  after 
all,  for  there  were  a  great  many  good,  brave, 
praying  women  all  over  the  country ;  and  so 
the  Union  was  preserved,  although  it  cost  them 
their  sons  that  died  in  battle. 

The  volunteer  statesmen  were  very  numer- 

t. 

ous,  and  their  epistles  were  generally  very 
long.  The  fate  of  these  was  generally  short, 
owing  to  the  handiness  of  the  willow  baskets. 


WRITING    TO   THE  PRESIDENT  79 

About  one-half,  at  least,  of  the  varied  ma- 
terials forwarded  by  mail  to  the  executive 
office  was  simply  misdirected,  in  the  ignorance 
of  the  senders.  It  consisted  of  legitimate  busi- 
ness with  the  government,  fairly  belonging  to 
one  or  another  of  the  many  bureaus  of  the  de- 
partments. All  these  were  easily  referred  to 
their  proper  places,  and  that  was  the  end  of 
them.  The  like  was  true  of  all  the  innumer- 
able applications  of  the  office-seekers. 

,  Kot  any  too  frequently,  a  formal  acknowl- 
edgment of  a  letter's  arrival  seemed  to  be 
called  for ;  but  there  was  little  tune  for  mere 
courtesies  in  those  days,  and  every  such  reply 
was  a  cutting  off  of  the  proposed  correspond- 
ence. There  could  be,  however,  only  small 
question  of  the  correctness  of  one  opinion  that 
grew  upon  me.  This  was,  that  whenever  a 
man  went  out-and-out  crazy,  his  first  delirious 
impulse  told  him  to  sit  down  and  write  to  Mr. 
Lincoln.  The  name  of  these  lunatics  was  Le- 
gion. Among  them,  during  many  months,  was 
a  poor  fellow  Avho  wrote  imperative  mandates 
concerning  all  manner  of  public  policy,  pro- 
fessing to  dip  his  pen  in  blood,  which  looked 
altogether  like  an  inferior  article  of  red  ink, 
and  signing  himself  the  Angel  Gabriel.  Very 
numerous  indeed,  also,  were  the  communica- 
tions, medium-wise,  from  the  spirit  world,  the 


80  LINCOLN  AT   WORK 

contents  whereof  might  go  to  prove,  if  genu- 
ine, that  there  are  very  badly  conducted  insane 
asylums  in  the  other  world. 

The  printed  matter  for  which  a  careful  read- 
ing Avas  requested,  perhaps  expected,  was 
simply  enormous,  and  its  perusal  would  have 
required  Mr.  Lincoln  to  be  set  free  from  the 
trammels  of  time. 

Something  like  this,  it  may  be,  goes  on  at 
the  present  day,  with  the  supposable  difference 
that  there  is  now  less  excitement,  no  bitter- 
ness, and  that  people  generally  are  better  in- 
formed. The  business  relations  of  the  White 
House  and  the  departments  must  be  better 
understood. 

It  is  to  be  hoped  that  there  is  yet  another 
difference.  The  meanest  of  all  the  manv  brutes 
who  attempted  to  sting  Mr.  Lincoln  wrote  to 
him  concerning  his  wife,  or  else  addressed  their 
unmanly  tirades  to  her  in  person.  I  wished 
then  that  these  wolves  could  have  known,  for 
their  consolation,  how  rigid  was  the  rule  with 
which  she  forbade  any  envelope  whatever,  save 
letters  from  her  own  sister,  to  reach  her  hands 
without  a  first  opening  and  examination  by 
myself.  IS^one  of  the  poisoned  arrows  hit  her 
after  the  first  few  were  shot  and  the  rule  was 
made.  She  was  a  woman  of  altogether  too 
much  intelligence  and  courage  to  be  greatly  an- 


WRITING   TO   THE  PRESIDENT  81 

noyed  by  the  purely  satanic  part  of  the  gen- 
eral enmity,  and  she  deemed  it  superfluous  to 
be  informed  as  to  Avhat  it  might  accomplish 
with  pen  and  paper.  The  paper-cutter  on  the 
correspondence  secretary's  desk  was,  therefore, 
a  defensive  weapon. 


WAY  back  yonder  in  the  dark  year 
1861,  late  one  evening  I  sat  by  my 
table  in  the  northeast  room  of  the 
White  House  at  Washington.  I 
was  hard  at  work  with  paper-knife  and  pen, 
opening  and  disposing  of  innumerable  letters 
that  lay  in  a  confused  heap  at  my  elbow,  for 
it  seemed  as  if  all  the  nation  were  disposed  to 
open  personal  correspondence  with  the  Presi- 
dent. I  was  only  a  kind  of  human  mill  to 
which  very  much  such  a  grist  was  brought  for 
grinding  several  times  every  day.  A  man 
would  come  through  the  door  before  me  with 
a  leather  mail-pouch.  He  would  unlock  the 
pouch,  pour  out  its  contents  on  the  table,  and 
go  out  again  without  saying  a  word.  Then 
every  envelope  had  to  be  opened,  and  the  fate 
of  whatever  was  in  each  covering  was  deter- 
mined with  lightning  rapidity.  Much  chaff, 
little  wheat,  and  a  great  deal  of  out-and-out 
evil  came  addressed  to  Mr.  Lincoln  during  all 
the  bitter-spirited  war  years. 

So  far  as  I  knew,  I  was  all  alone  upon  that 
floor,  for  the  other   secretaries   had   finished 

82 


THE  NIGHT  COUNCIL  83 

their  work  and  gone  out.  Ko  mail-carrier  was 
due  at  that  hour  ;  but  the  door  opened,  and  a 
man  came  in.  He  did  not  have  any  locked 
pouch  in  his  hand,  but  a  very  large  leather 
portfolio,  such,  for  instance,  as  might  be  used 
for  holding  maps  and  broad  documents  like 
parchment  commissions,  civil  or  military.  I 
arose  as  he  entered,  for  I  was  conscious  of  a 
sudden  wonder  as  to  what  he  might  be  doing 
with  that  portfolio. 

"  Stoddard,"  he  said,  "  I'm  going  over  to 
Seward's.  I  want  you  to  take  this  and  come 
along  with  me." 

Something  else  was  said,  no  matter  what, 
and  I  left  my  heap  of  unfinished  mail-matter 
behind  me. 

Mr.  Lincoln  seemed  to  be  in  an  unusually 
cheerful  mood,  with  occasional  lapses  into  fits 
of  absorbing  thought.  One  of  these  came 
upon  him  at  the  head  of  the  stairs,  and  there 
he  lingered  for  a  moment  as  if  he  might  have 
forgotten  something  and  was  trying  to  remem- 
ber it.  His  next  pause  was  in  the  porch  out- 
side of  the  front  door,  when  he  discovered  that 
it  was  raining.  Back  he  stepped,  and  called 
to  "old  Edward  "  Moran,  the  doorkeeper,  to 
bring  him  his  umbrella.  The  doorkeeper 
would  find  it,  he  was  assured  by  the  comman- 
der-in-chief of  the  United  States  armies   and 


84 


LINCOLN  AT   WORK 


navies,  "  in  the  corner  by  my  desk,  near  the 
window." 

Up  went  Edward ;  and  in  a  few  moments 
more  he  was  down  again,  smiling  sarcastically 
and  rubbing  his  hands  one  over  the  other  in  a 
manner  that  was  habitual  with  him  whenever 
he  had  something  especial  to  say. 


<«  Tm  ' 


It's  not  there,  Youk  Excellexcy. 


>> 


"It's   not    there,    your   Excellency.       I'm' 
thinking  the  owner  may  have  come  for  it." 

"  Go  and  get  me  another,  then,"  commanded 
the  President,  laughing  heartily  at  the  manner 
more  than  the  matter  of  Edward's  drollerv. 

The  next  search  for  an  umbrella  was  success- 
ful,   although   there    was   more   spread    than 


THE  NIGHT  COUNCIL  85 

splendor  in  the  very  antiquated  shelter  tent 
that  was  brought  by  the  doorkeeper.  Under 
its  protection,  nevertheless,  we  walked  on  out 
of  the  White  House  grounds,  and  as  we  went 
]\[r.  Lincoln  related  merrily  sundry  other  of 
Edward's  comicalities. 

*'  He  has  been  here,"  he  said,  "  since  Taylor's 
time.  He  was  a  great  favorite  w^ith  President 
Taylor.  Did  you  ever  hear  his  hit  upon  Fill- 
more's carriage  ?  " 

I  replied  that  I  had  never  heard  it. 

"  Well,  then.  President  Fillmore  used  to  tell 
it  himself.  Shortly  after  Taylor's  death  and 
Fillmore's  inauguration  it  was  necessary  for 
him  to  procure  a  carriage.  A  gentleman  that 
was  breaking  up  housekeeping  had  one  to  sell, 
and  Fillmore  went,  one  day,  to  take  a  look  at 
it  and  see  if  it  would  do.  He  took  old  Edward 
with  him.  The  carriage  seemed  to  suit  Avell 
enough ;  but  Fillmore  turned  to  Edward,  and 
asked  him,  *  Edward,  how"  w^ill  it  do  for  the 
President  of  the  United  States  to  ride  in  a 
second-hand  carriage  ?  '  Edward  rubbed  his 
hands  hard,  and  answered  him,  '  Sure,  your 
Excellency,  you're  only  a  second-hand  presi- 
dent, you  know.'  " 

Any  passer-by  at  that  moment,  listening  to 
the  anecdote  and  the  laugh  that  followed 
might  well   have   supposed  that  somebody  a 


86  LTXCOLX  AT   WOEK 

little  belated  ^vas  going  home  cheerfully,  im- 
oppressed  by  business  cares  and  certainly  not 
aware  of  being  in  any  shadow  of  personal 
peril. 

AVas  there,  then,  at  that  time  any  danger  of 
violence  to  Mr.  Lincoln  ? 

I  do  not  know.  There  mav  not  have  been 
any,  although  there  were  bitter  enmities 
enough.  Hardly  a  day  passed  without  the  ar- 
rival of  threatening  letters  which  he  refused 
to  know  anything  about.  Xeither  were  they 
ever  seen  bv  other  eves  than  mine.  Most  of 
them,  doubtless,  may  be  regarded  as  only  the 
empty  expressions  of  brutal  animosities, 
whether  their  envelopes  were  addressed  to  the 
President,  or,  as  some  of  the  worst  of  them 
Trere,  to  his  wife. 

At  all  events,  there  were  no  armed  guards 
to  be  seen  around  the  White  House  grounds 
that  rainy  night.  xS  ot  even  a  solitary  sentinel 
was  posted  to  inquire  the  purposes  of  whoever 
might  come  or  go  to  or  from  the  headquarters 
of  the  armies  of  the  republic. 

The  house  then  occupied  by  the  secretary  of 
state  was  on  the  easterlv  side  of  Lafavette 
Square,  standing  by  itself,  the  second  house 
from  the  corner  of  Pennsylvania  Avenue.  It 
was  wide-fronted,  without  any  basement  story, 
and  had  a  central  hall.     On  the  right  of  this, 


TEE  NIGHT  COUNCIL  87 

at  the  main  entrance,  was  an  ample  reception- 
room,  into  which  a  servant  conducted  us  that 
evening.  A  bright  fire  of  logs  was  blazing  in 
the  fireplace.  In  front  of  this  was  a  business- 
ofiice  table  covered  with  green  leather,  littered 
with  books  and  papers. 

The  President  took  a  chair  before  the  fire, 
and  at  once  all  the  cheerfulness  went  out  of 
him.  I  found  a  chair  for  mvself  behind  the 
table,  on  which  I  deposited  my  portfolio.  I 
had  already  been  informed  whom  we  were  to 
meet,  but  not  what  for. 

A  lons"  minute  or  so  went  bv  ;  and  then  the 
hall  door  opened,  and  in  walked  Mr.  Seward, 
accompanied  by  Major-General  John  A.  Dix, 
then  recently  placed  in  charge  of  civil  rather 
than  militarv  afi'airs  in  Marvland  and  a  larofe 
adjoining  territory.  He  was  a  short,  slight, 
handsome  man,  of  exceedingly  polished  man- 
ners, and  I,  as  a  born  Xew  Yorker,  had  been 
very  proud  of  his  noble  conduct  while  a  mem- 
ber, as  secretarv  of  the  treasurv,  of  the  last 
cabinet  of  President  Buchanan.  The  country 
owed  him  a  debt  of  gratitude  on  that  account 
much  more  than  for  all  the  good  service  he 
had  previously  rendered  as  governor  of  the 
State  of  Xew  York,  as  Senator  of  the  United 
States,  or  as  diplomat  representing  the  nation 
in  Europe. 


88  LINCOLN  AT  WORK 

As  soon  as  my  formal  introduction  as  one 
of  the  President's  private  secretaries  was  over, 
I  was  quite  willing  to  get  back  again  behind 
the  table  Avhile  these  three  remarkable  men 
sat  before  the  fire  and  discussed  the  critical  as- 
pect of  national  affairs.  All  my  remaining 
duties  were  occasional  responses  to  demands 
for  maps  and  papers  to  be  hunted  for  in  the 
portfolio.  Then  a  sort  of  deep  awe  came  upon 
me  as  their  conversation  passed  deliberately, 
slowly,  from  point  to  point.  Their  especial 
subject  for  consultation  was  the  policy  thence- 
forth to  be  pursued  with  the  border  States, 
Maryland,  western  and  eastern  Virginia, 
Kentucky,  eastern  Tennessee,  and  Missouri. 
It  was  a  subject  with  which  General  Dix,  for 
some  reason,  was  supposed  to  be  exceptionally 
familiar,  and  concerning  which  he  had  formed 
decided  opinions  of  his  own.  These  views,  as 
they  were  now  brought  out  conversationally, 
were  found  to  be  very  nearly,  but  not  quite,  in 
accord  with  those  of  the  President  and  the 
secretary  of  state.  It  was  a  curiously  informal 
and  yet  unspeakabl}^  important  night  council. 
Upon  the  decisions  made  then  and  there 
might  depend  the  immediate  future  of  large 
populations,  States,  and,  in  proportional  con- 
sequence, the  welfare  of  the  whole  nation,  the 
outcome  of  the  Civil  War  itself. 


THE  NIGHT  COUNCIL 


89 


The  long  conference  ended  at  last.  The 
maps  and  papers  were  restored  to  the  portfolio. 
The  three  great  men  shook  hands  heartily, 
and  Mr.  Lincoln  set  out  homeward.  It  was 
raining  only  lightly ;  but  the  umbrella  Avas  up, 
and  the  President  walked  on  under  it  very 
slowly,  as  if  he  were  thinking.     Perhaps  it  was 


'.  .V.  ■  Va.^ 


**It  was  a  curiously  informal  council." 


my  State  pride  which  induced  me  to  venture 
the  question,  "  Now,  Mr.  Lincoln,  w^hat  do 
you  think  of  General  Dix  ?  " 

He  was  silent  for  a  moment. 

"  What  do  I  think  of  him  ?  "  he  then  said. 
*'  Well !  This  is  the  first  time  I  ever  met  him  ; 
but  from  what  he  has  said  to-night,  from  the 
advice  he  has  given,  I  should  say  that  General 
Dix  is  a  wise,  a  very  wise  man." 


90  LINCOLN  AT   WORK 

That  was  satisfactorv,  and  we  walked  on  to 
the  breastwork-like  stone  parapet  of  the  side- 
walk at  the  northeasterly  corner  of  the  AVhite 
House.  Here  the  President  halted  and  stood 
still,  gazing  southward.  In  that  rainy,  misty 
gloom,  it  was  impossible  for  him  to  see  the  Po- 
tomac or  the  fort-crowned  heights  beyond  it. 
There  were  dimly  glimmering  points  of  light 
here  and  there,  but  all  that  he  was  staring  into 
was  as  a  sort  of  symbol  of  the  great  darkness 
which  at  that  date  had  settled  over  the  country. 
Tears  like  rain  were  falling  everywhere,  and 
the  wisest  as  well  as  the  bravest  confessed  their 
utter  inability  to  forecast  the  things  that  were 
toK3ome. 

Not  a  syllable  was  spoken  during  that  pro- 
longed, absorbed,  gloomy  look  toward  the 
South,  toward  the  Confederacy. 

Then,  moving  wearily,  the  President  turned 
away  to  the  portico,  and  I  shut  down  the  um- 
brella. Old  Edward  had  been  Avatching,  for 
the  door  swung  open  and  a  stream  of  light 
sprang  out.  There  had  been  a  comicality  on  his 
lips,  ready  for  speech  ;  but  the  old  doorkeeper 
looked  into  Mr.  Lincoln's  face,  and  all  the 
prepared  fun  died  out  of  his  own.  E"ot  toward 
the  household  side  of  the  mansion,  but  up  the 
other  stairs  to  his  business  office,  the  President 
led  the  way,  as  if  he  had  yet  more  work  to  do 


THE  NIGHT  COUNCIL  91 

— if  there  was  ever  any  hour  when  he  had  not. 
The  portfolio  was  left  upon  the  long  cabinet- 
council  table,  and  I  returned  to  my  northeast 
room  ;  but  I  did  not  feel  like  opening  or  read- 
ing any  more  letters.  I  knew  more  than  I 
had  ever  known  before  concerning  the  deadly 
dangers  besetting  the  United  States,  and  also 
much  more  of  the  deep-thinking  wisdom  and 
patriotism  by  which  those  dangers  were  to  be 
met  and  overcome.  Not  by  clashing  army 
corps  upon  a  battle-field,  but  by  three  states- 
men before  a  fireplace,  had  the  nation  been 
well  defended  and  its  future  salvation  in  a 
manner  assured. 


'^  \  and  the  tf^ 

niteHome. 


'K  the  old,  old  davs  before  the  Civil 
AYar,  and  very  nearly  at  the  end 
of  that  era  of  excitement  and  ex- 
travagance, there  still  lingered  in 
Washington  city  society  one  objectionable 
remnant  of  ancient  notions  concerning  hospi- 
talit}^  Perhaps  it  was  a  small  yet  treasured 
frao^ment  of  the  ancient  baronial  custom  of 
"  open  house." 

Its  most  complete  representative,  and  often 
very  handsome  indeed,  was  ''  the  sideboard " 
in  each  dining-room,  and  next  to  this  was  the 
"  locker  "  in  parlor  or  library. 

As  for  the  former,  it  might  be  brilliant  with 
cut-glass  goblets  and  decanters  and  with  wine- 
glasses of  varied  tints  and  patterns.  AVith 
these,  whether  always  visible  or  only  ready  to 
be  brought  out,  were  brandy,  old  rum,  gin, 
whiskey,  port,  sherry,  Madeira,  and  cigars. 

According  to  the  tastes,  the  pocket,  or  the 
credit  of  the  householder  were  the  glitter  and 
the  perfection  or  profusion  of  the  social  stim- 
ulants ready  for  offering. 

92 


•     THE  SIDEBOARD  AND  THE  WHITE  HOUSE     93 

All  this  was  in  the  houses  of  men  of  means, 
but  vastly  more  numerous  were  the  minor  im- 
itations. By  the  sure  operation  of  the  laws 
of  finance,  and  also  by  the  requirements  of 
local  household  or  office  proprieties,  the  lists 
of  refreshments  indicated  diminished  in  num- 
ber and  in  kind  until  in  the  lower  grades  of 
purchasing  ability  even  the  brandy  disappeared. 
On  the  most  extended  line  or  level  all  that 
still  was  free  was  the  plain  glass  tumbler  and 
plain  whiskey. 

Thoughtful  people,  especially  "total-absti- 
nence "  people,  of  the  present  day  may  not  all 
be  aware  how  tremendous  is  the  improvement 
which  has  been  made.  They  may  be  able  to 
thank  God  more  heartily  for  the  present  and 
to  gain  courage  and  faith  concerning  the 
future  if  now  and  then  the  past  shall  be  held 
before  their  eyes  with  even  offensive  plainness. 
If  by  this  means  they  are  enabled  to  perceive 
more  clearly  the  kind  of  Egypt  from  which 
the  Lord  has  led  us  out,  then  they  may  not 
murmur  quite  so  much  in  the  moral  wilderness 
which  yet  remains,  for  we  are  a  great  deal 
nearer  Canaan  than  we  were  a  half-century 
ago.  It  was,  after  all,  only  an  all  but  universal 
evil  which  found  this  form  for  its  seductive 
expression  among  the  preservers  of  old  fash- 
ions at  Washington. 


94  LINCOLN  AT   WORK 

In  the  Capitol  building  itself  were  then  not 
only  the  authorized  restaurants  in  each  wing, 
Senate  and  House  of  Representatives,  but  also 
the  "  hole  in  the  wall,"  with  its  door  so  very 
near  to  that  of  the  Supreme  Court  rooms,  at 
the  centre,  and  the  committee  rooms  with  their 
Avell-supplied  lockers.  Besides  these  were  the 
numerous  clerk-room  desk  "  crypts "  for  mis- 
cellaneous hospitality,  that  were  easier  far  for 
a  visitor  to  find  than  was  the  historic  crypt 
under  the  foundations  of  the  original  structure, 
desiofned  bv  its  architect  to  receive  the  bones 
of  George  Washington. 

The  "  keeper  of  the  crypt "  was  paid  a  sin- 
ecure salary  during  several  successive  genera- 
tions, and  the  legislation  for  the  extinction  of 
his  office  was  obtained  with  difficulty.  Much 
more  difficult  to  engineer  was  the  suppression 
of  some  of  the  unnecessary  barrooms,  public 
and  private,  at  the  Capitol. 

In  that  day,  if  a  man  who  was  for  any  rea- 
son a  welcome  visitor,  especially  if  he  were  ac- 
companied by  friends, went  into  parlor  or  office 
which  contained  due  provision  for  hospitality, 
he  was  sure  of  a  pressing,  an  all  but  irresist- 
ible, invitation  to  drink,  although  that  is  a 
coarse,  unpleasant  term  with  which  to  describe 
free-hearted  friendliness. 

For  even  a  stranger  to  respond  by  a  point- 


THE  SIDEBOARD  AND  THE  WHITE  HOUSE    95 

blank  refusal  was  often  to  run  a  serious  risk 
of  giving  personal  offence.  There  is  no  danger 
at  all  that  any  one  will  or  can  form  an  exag- 
gerated idea  concerning  the  universality  or 
mischief  of  this  custom.     It  was  ruinous. 

The  Executive  Mansion,  the  abode  as  well 
as  the  business  office  of  the  presidents  of  the 
United  States,  from  the  day  when  it  was  first 
occupied,  half-finished,  by  the  Adams  family, 
had  a  character  of  its  own,  changing  only  a 
little,  from  term  to  term,  with  the  character  of 
its  illustrious  tenant  pro  tern.  It  was  gener- 
ally regarded  by  the  people  of  Washington 
themselves  and  by  many  who  came  to  it  from 
far  corners  of  the  land  as  being  necessarily  a 
house  for  the  offering  of  generous  hospitality 
of  this  description.  The  attempts  of  more 
than  one  of  the  presidents  to  comply  with  this 
absurd  demand  upon  them  resulted  in  almost 
their  financial  shipwreck. 

There  are  many  legends  of  the  old-time 
White  House  entertainments  and  "  receptions." 
Some  of  them  we  may  well  wish  to  believe 
too  highly  colored  and  untrustworthy.  At 
least,  there  is  no  need  to  print  them ;  but  the 
proceedings  at  the  inauguration  of  President 
Jackson,  for  instance,  have  been  published 
with  some  fulness,  and  will  serve  for  all  useful 
illustration  and  suggestion.     An  examination 


96  LIXCOLN  AT    WORK  \ 

of  tliat  record  enables  us  to  mark  the  advance 
in  public  opinion  by  reason  of  which  some 
things  which  once  were  custoraarv  are  now 
impossible. 

The  dawn  of  the  better  state  of  things  ap- 
peared some  years  before  the  Civil  War ;  but 
as  yet  it  was  only  a  dawn,  and  not  a  bright 
one.  There  were  then  alreadv  a  number  of 
official  and  other  notable  households  wherein 
not  anything  objectionable  was  to  be  en- 
countered. 

The  list  of  these  was  increasing  only  too 
slowly,  and  it  would  now  be  invidious  to 
specify  any  of  them  by  name.  The  house- 
holds and  the  clean-kept  public  offices  were 
rare  exceptions,  like  oases  in  a  desert, — a 
tliirsty  desert ;  and  they  were  so  maintained 
in  defiance  of  a  sentiment  or  opinion  the 
power  of  which  can  now  be  but  imperfectly 
understood. 

There  yet  remains,  curiously,  a  class  of  men, 
distinguished  and  otherwise,  who  speak  at 
times  regretfully,  admiringly,  of  the  vanished 
customs,  the  abolished  freedom  and  good  fel- 
lowship. 

There  is  a  verv  interestino:  moral  and  reli- 
gious  history  to  be  read  and  pondered  over,  if 
we  turn  from  the  capital  to  the  country  at 
large,  and  try  to  trace  the  course  of  the  ac- 


TErE  SIDEBOARD  AND  THE  WHITE  HOUSE    97 

knowledgecl  improvement.  One  very  power- 
ful agency  or  help  in  bringing  about  the  revo- 
lution at  TTashington,  however,  worked  alto- 
gether silently,  and  it  seems  to  deserve  a 
record.  A  sort  of  shudder  went  through  the 
hearts  of  the  preservers  of  the  ancient  free 
and  liberal  customs,  early  in  ISGl,  when  the 
incredible  assertion  was  passed  from  lip  to  lip 
that  there  was  thenceforth  to  be  no  wine  or 
anything  else  of  a  hospitable  nature  to  be  ob- 
tained at  the  Executive  Mansion.  The  good 
old  days  were  indeed  felt  to  be  passing  away ; 
and  the  new,  the  strange,  the  unknown,  was 
coming  in. 

There  were,  of  course,  many  who  refused 
belief,  and  took  it  for  granted  that,  if  the 
presidential  sideboard  had  vanished  from  its 
former  place  of  glitter  and  renown,  the  locker, 
at  least,  must  still  remain,  with  its  treasures 
of  secret  gratification  for  the  palates  of  the 
favored  and  initiated  few.  By  others  it  was 
tacitly  assumed  that  Mr.  Lincoln  was  really 
receiving  too  many  visitors  of  all  sorts,  and 
anything  like  treating  was  of  necessity  tem- 
porarily to  be  dispensed  with.  There  was  a 
great  deal  of  pressure  upon  him,  you  know, 
and  his  friends  must  bear  it  in  mind. 

Precisely  what  was  the  nature  of  the  new 
order  of  things  may  be  illustrated  by  an  inci- 


98  LINCOLN  AT  WORK 

dent  which  was  almost  amusing.  Among  Mr. 
Lincoln's  warm  admirers  in  the  city  of  New 
York  were  several  gentlemen  with  social  ten- 
dencies. They  knew  little  of  his  personal 
habits  and  prejudices ;  but  they  were  aware 
that  he  was  from  the  West,  and  believed  them- 
selves familiar  with  Western  customs.  They 
were  also  traditionall}^  aware  of  the  costly  ex- 
actions of  White  House  hospitality,  and  they 
determined  to  aid  him  in  bearing  that  part  of 
the  tremendous  burden  put  upon  him.  Their 
intentions,  according  to  such  light  and  knowl- 
edge as  they  had,  were  patriotic,  and  their 
performance  was  liberality  itself.  They  made 
out  a  "  wine  list  "  which  omitted  hardly  any- 
thing supposedly  to  be  required  by  the  side- 
board or  locker  of  the  commander-in-chief,  and 
the  supply  included  even  his  dinner-table. 
Everything  sent  was  choice  of  its  kind,  and 
it  was  expressed,  prepaid,  with  warm  decla- 
rations of  good  will.  To  their  credit  be 
it  also  said  that  hardly  any  of  the  several 
givers  of  that  lot  of  stimulants  for  an  over- 
worked president  deemed  it  in  good  taste  to 
allow  so  much  as  their  names  to  be  communi- 
cated with  the  gift. 

The  first  that  I  heard  of  it  was  when  a  sud- 
den, peremptory  summons  came  up  to  me  from 
Mrs.  Lincoln  to  come  and  see  her  at  once. 


MRS.  LINCOLN. 
From  an  old  claguerreotj'pe. 


THE  SIDEBOARD  AND  THE  WHITE  HOUSE    99 

I  hurried  down-stairs  to  her  reception-room, 
the  historic  Eed  Eoom,  somewhat  anxious  to 
know  what  might  be  the  matter.  There  was 
enough,  indeed,  for  serious  consultation ;  for 
she  rapidly  unfolded  to  me  the  story  of  the 
Kew  York  contribution. 

"  Now ! "  she  exclaimed,  in  very  comical 
perplexity,  "  what  are  we  -to  do  ?  I  don't  wish 
to  offend  them,  of  course.  But  Mr.  Lincoln 
won't  have  it  in  the  house.  He  never  uses 
any.  I  never  touch  it  myself.  And  O,  there 
is  so  much  of  it !  " 

"  AVhere  is  it,  Mrs.  Lincoln  ?  " 

"  Why,  it 's  all  down-stairs,  in  the  basement. 
I  have  n't  told  Mr.  Lincoln,  and  I  don't  wish  to 
bother  him  about  it.  I  wish  you  Avould  just  de- 
cide the  matter,  and  tell  me  what  to  do.  What 
answer  shall  I  give  to  these  gentlemen  ?  What 
am  I  to  do  with  all  the  liquors  and  wines  ?  " 

Her  dismay  had  set  me  laughing,  but  I 
thought  I  could  see  a  way  out  of  her  very 
serious  dilemma. 

"  As  to  them,"  I  said,  "  madam,  all  you 
need  to  do  is  to  send  an  entirely  formal  ac- 
knowledgment to  whoever  has  acted  as  their 
agent.  Only  a  business-like  receipt  for  parcels 
duly  delivered.  As  for  the  wines  and  liquors, 
don't  let  them  stay  in  the  house  at  all.  Do 
not  worry  the  President  about  it,  either.    Make 


100  LINCOLN  AT   WORK 

a  fair  division  of  the  whole  lot  among  the 
army  hospitals,  and  ship  'em  right  away.  The 
suro-eons  and  nurses  will  know  what  to  do 
with  them.  Put  all  the  responsibility  upon 
the  scientific  people.  If  any  of  the  sick 
soldiers  need  it,  there  it  is." 

"  That 's  exactly  what  I  will  do  !  "  she  ex- 
claimed. "  Every  bit  of  it  shall  go  out,  right 
away.  Then,  if  anybody  ever  says  anything 
about  it,  all  I  need  to  do  is  to  tell  what  we  did 
with  it." 

It  may  be  that  the  kindly  New  Yorkers 
themselves  would  not  have  felt  any  sense  of 
personal  disappointment  if  they  had  known 
the  actual  destination  and  service  of  their 
carefully  selected  assortment,  but  I  do  not 
know  that  they  were  ever  made  aware  of  it. 

All  this  was  very  nearly  at  the  beginning 
of  the  Lincoln  administration,  and  the  kind 
of  moral  testimony  which  it  represents  went 
on  in  silent  power  year  after  year.  Men  did 
not  feel  like  drinking  before  going  to  call 
upon  Mr.  Lincoln.  Officials  of  all  sorts  felt 
the  unseen  pressure,  and  it  was  all  the  while 
aided,  added  to,  by  the  precept  and  exam- 
ple of  several  prominent  statesmen.  ]^ot 
one  of  them  preached  on  temperance.  Mr. 
Lincoln  did  not,  but  the  tone  of  official  con- 
duct and  life  underwent  a  gradual  change. 


THE  SIDEBOARD  AND  THE  WHITE  HOUSE  101 

IS'otliing  like  perfection  has  yet  been  at- 
tained in  Washington,  or  an}^  where  else  ;  but 
most  of  the  "  barroom ''  sideboards  compara- 
tively have  departed,  or  at  least  have  disap- 
peared. AVith  them  has  gone  away  a  vast 
amount  of  the  most  pernicious,  poisonous 
temptation. 

At  all  events,  the  result,  such  as  it  is,  is  a 
forcible  lecture  in  itself  upon  the  power  of  ex- 
ample and  the  responsibilities  of  those  who 
are  in  high  places. 


T^^^ 


JhE^SeNTRY flJ^THE  GMe 


•i'-^^ 


^^r^^HERE  was  once  a  great  fire  in  the 
^^^  '^  '^  outsli:irts  of  the  city  of  AVashing- 
ton.  Xo  buildings  of  importance 
perished,  but  a  number  of  tempor- 
ary wooden  structures  provided  by  the  quar- 
termaster's department  for  the  storage  of  sup- 
plies for  the  army.  AVith  these  and  with  their 
very  valuable  contents  of  hay,  straw,  grain, 
and  provisions,  many  horses  also  were  burned. 
For  obvious  reasons,  the  loss  was  somewhat 
notable,  and  the  fire  was  said  to  have  been 
lighted  by  a  spark  from  a  cigar. 

This  being  taken  for  granted,  an  order  went 
out  instantly  from  the  headquarters  of  the 
militarv  officer  in  command  of  the  city,  con- 
sidered  only  as  a  fortified  post  of  the  Army  of 
the  Potomac,  rigidly  prohibiting  all  smoking 
within  a  specified  distance  of  any  of  the  nu- 
merous ''  public  buildings." 

The  enero-etic  armv  man  had  in  his  mind, 
no  doubt,  the  sundry  structures  of  a  military 
character  and  use,  but  the  consecjuences  con- 
tained something  like  a  lesson  or  lecture  upon 

102 


THE  SENTRY  AT  THE   GATE  103 

"  militarism."  This  is  a  thing  with  which  the 
American  people  had  never  had  anything  to 
do,  prior  to  the  Civil  AYar.  It  then  grew 
rapidly  to  very  large,  mushroom  proportions, 
and  it  was  not  entirely  rooted  out  until  several 
presidential  elections  had  labored  with  it. 

The  Capitol  and  many  other  of  the  public 
buildino^s  at  Washinoton  are  verv  nearlv  lire- 
proof.  They  are,  at  least,  in  no  danger  what- 
ever from  small  cigar-sparks.  A  few  of  the 
older  affairs  were  then  of  a  more  combustible 
character,  but  had  escaped  from  innumerable 
smokers  and  were  in  no  immediate  danger 
whatever. 

The  Executive  Mansion,  not  at  all  fire-proof, 
is  one  of  the  public  buildings,  and  it  was  mani- 
festly covered  by  the  order,  literally  construed. 
Something  like  obedience  was  to  have  been 
expected  from  President  Lincoln  himself,  as  he 
never  smoked.  He  was  not  the  kind  of  man, 
moreover,  to  set  his  own  house  on  fire ;  but  I 
have  seen  the  sparks  fly  out  in  all  directions 
from  the  blazino^  loo:s  in  the  old-fashioned  fire- 
places  of  the  AVhite  House. 

As  to  the  personal  habits  of  other  presidents, 
there  was  a  legend  that  Andrew  Jackson  used 
to  sit  and  smoke  in  his  Mexican  chair  in  front 
of  the  fireplace  in  his  ofiice-room,  until  two  of 
the  bricks  of  its  arch  were  deeply  foot  marked. 


104  LINCOLN  AT   WORK 

At  about  the  time  ^Yhen  Mr.  Lincoln  entered 
the  office,  tliat  arch  \A^as  reconstructed,  and 
Mr.  Lincohi  expressed  much  regret  that  those 
particular  bricks  had  not  been  preserved. 
There  was  a  subtle,  well-understood  meaning 
in  his  wish  to  put  his  own  feet  in  the  tracks 
left  by  the  old  hero  who  had  dealt  so  lirmlj 
with  the  first  beoinnino:s  of  "  nullification  and 
secession." 

There  was  now  no  real  dano^er  of  any  other 
kind  of  fire  at  the  Executive  Mansion. 

A  very  zealous  military  man  was  in  com- 
mand of  the  regiment  of  volunteers,  infantry, 
from  which  details  were  made  for  the  new 
"  guard  "  provided  for  the  personal  safety  of 
the  President.  Some  of  the  companies  of  this 
regiment  were  composed,  for  the  greater  part, 
of  patriotic  German-Americans,  with  Euro- 
pean ideas  concerning  strict  discipline  and 
army  orders. 

Besides  the  guards  on  foot,  a  cavalry  regi- 
ment familiarly  known  as  Scott's  Xine  Hun- 
dred had  been  ordered  to  furnish  details  for 
mounted  patrols  and  videttes  to  complete  the 
security  of  the  national  headquarters. 

Not  very  late,  one  dark  autumnal  evening, 
I  was  strolling  along  Pennsj^lvania  Avenue, 
past  the  corner  of  the  Treasury  Building.  I 
was  smoking  a  cigar,  and  was  in  no  hurry,  al- 


THE  SENTRY  AT  THE  GATE  105 

though  there  was  a  large  pile  of  epistolary 
work  upon  my  table  in  the  northeast  room. 
As  I  drew  near  to  the  open  gate  of  the  road- 
way that  leads  from  the  Avenue  to  the  house, 
I  paused  for  a  moment  to  consider  the  changed 
order  of  things.  It  was  as  the  change  from 
peace  to  war,  from  the  civil  authority  to  army 
rule. 

Just  inside  of  the  gateway,  in  the  carriage 
road,  sat  a  cavalryman,  motionless,  but  ready 
at  anv  moment  for  the  use  of  sabre  or  carbine. 
I  can  remember  now  that  his  horse  stood  as 
still  as  if  he  had  been  cast  in  bronze.  He 
looked  much  more  like  a  horse,  however,  than 
do  some  of  the  bronze  castings. 

A  few  paces  from  him,  on  the  paved  foot- 
path at  his  right,  near  the  small  gate  for 
pedestrians,  stood  a  tall  volunteer  whose  rifle 
carried  a  peculiarly  effective-looking  sabre 
bayonet.  I  had  carried  one  of  those  things 
myself  when  in  service,  and  knew  how  useful 
they  were  to  break  up  hardtack,  split  kin- 
dlings, or  poke  a  dull  fire.  There  is  no  record, 
I  believe,  of  their  employment  for  butchering 
human  beings.  At  every  other  gateway  or 
outside  sallyport  of  any  kind  around  the  mod- 
est palace  of  the  dictator  of  America,  and  en- 
tirely without  his  direction,  just  such  military 
protection  had  been  given  him.     Owing,  how- 


106  LINCOLN  AT   WORK 

ever,  to  the  nature  of  the  fences  and  the  ex- 
tent of  the  ground,  Scott's  Xine  Hundred  and 
the  infantry  might  as  well  have  been  south  of 
the  Potomac  so  far  as  any  real  danger  to  the 
President  might  be  concerned. 

Swinging  along  somewhat  wearily,  listlessly, 
I  had  turned  through  the  smaller  gate,  puffing 
at  my  weed,  when  I  was  suddenly  brought  up 
by  a  flash  of  glittering  steel  apparently  many 
inches  in  width,  carrying  both  point  and  edge, 
such  as  thev  were. 

"  Put  out  dot  cigar-r-r  !  " 

"What?"  I  responded,  more  than  a  little 
astonished  at  this  military  invasion  of  my  ac- 
customed privileges  in  the  neighborhood  of  my 
own  official  workshop.  But  again  the  bayonet 
flashed,  and  there  were  words  unmistakably 
German,  followed  by  a  sternly  uttered  repeti- 
tion of  the  command. 

"  Put  out  dot  cigar-r-r  I  " 

I  offered  explanations,  but  they  were  given 
all  in  vain,  for  the  Teutonic  sentinel  was  furi- 
ously firm. 

I  was  compelled,  then,  to  recall  to  mind  the 
letter,  if  not  the  spirit,  of  the  order  for  the 
salvation  of  the  public  buildings ;  and  I  pitched 
away  all  that  was  left  of  the  Cuban  peril  I 
was  bringing  upon  them. 

My  walk  began  again,  but  I  was  already 


THE  SENTRY  AT  THE  GATE 


107 


aware  that  the  cavalryman's  rigidity  had  de- 
parted from  him.  He  had  been  swaying  side- 
wise  in  his   saddle  as  if  his  half-suppressed 


"Put  out  dot  cigar-k-r!" 


laughter  might  dismount  him,  and  I  had  be- 
lieved that  he  was  laughing  at  me.    Now,  also, 


108  LINCOLN  AT   WORK 

his  bronze  horse  curveted  and  wheeled,  and  in. 
a  moment  more  he  was  pulling  up  beside  me. 

"  Mr.  Secretary  !  Wait  a  moment !  The 
best  joke  you  ever  heard  !  " 

I  halted  readily  and  faced  him ;  for  he  had 
not  drawn  his  sabre,  and  his  pistols  remained 
in  their  holsters. 

"  What 's  the  matter  ?  I  supposed  I  had  a 
right  to  do  as  I  pleased  around  here." 

His  horse  plunged  a  little,  as  if  he  had  some 
fun  in  him,  but  the  rider  succeeded  in  keeping 
near  enough  to  tell  me.  "  It  was  n't  an  hour 
ago  that  Germany  halted  Stanton  himself  right 
there,  just  as  he  did  you." 

"  What  ?  The  secretary  of  war  ?  Did  he 
make  him  throw  away  his  cigar  ?  " 

"  Well,  he  did !  Stanton  all  but  ran  against 
him  in  the  dark,  and  German}^  shouted  at  him, 
*"  You  puts  out  dot  cigar  I '  till  he  gave  it  up. 
But  that  was  n't  all.  Stanton  laughed,  but  he 
had  n't  more  'n  got  out  of  sight  before  old 
Seward,  he  came  along ;  and  he  's  almost  al- 
ways smoking." 

"Did  he  halt  Seward?" 

"  You  bet !  He  pointed  his  frog-sticker  at 
him,  and  yelled,  '  You  put  out  dot  cigar ! ' 

"  '  O,  I  guess  not,'  said  Seward,  and  he  was 
going  right  along  ;  but  he  had  to  halt  and 
stand  still,  and  no  kind  of  explanation  w^as 


THE  SENTRY  AT  THE   GATE  109 

worth  a  cent.  Out  it  had  to  go  before  he  could 
pass  the  gate." 

"  Stanton  and  Seward  both  !  "  I  exclaimed, 
and  the  bronze  horse  gave  another  curvet,  as 
if  he  perfectly  understood  the  portfolios  of 
state  and  war,  but  the  cavalryman  again  sup- 
pressed his  chuckling  and  his  spirited  beast, 
and  went  on. 

"  That  is  n't  all,  though.  Seward  got  away 
without  being  prodded,  but  a  few  minutes 
later  along  came  old  Ben  Butler,  as  large  as 
life ;  and  he  was  swinging  right  in,  but  he 
was  n't  in  his  major-general's  uniform.  Looked 
like  a  civilian,  you  know.  '  Halt !  You  puts 
out  dot  cigar ! '  shouts  Germany,  and  Ben 
halted. 

"  '  Are  those  your  orders  ? '  he  asked. 

"  '  Dose  is  my  orters  !  Put  out  dot  cigar  ! ' 
The  frog-sticker  was  pointing  straight  at  him, 
and  old  Ben  threw  his  cigar  away  over  the 
fence. 

" '  Orders  are  orders,  and  they  must  be 
obeyed.  There  it  goes,'  he  said,  and  on  he 
went.  You  ought  to  have  been  here  as  I  was, 
and  seen  and  heard  it." 

He  had  more  to  say,  to  bring  out  all  the 
peculiar  personalities  and  behavior  of  the  three 
distinguished  victims  of  military  authority  un- 
necessarily  enforced,    and    then    he  wheeled 


110  LINCOLN  AT   WORK 

away  to  his  post  of  duty,  while  the  volunteer 
and  his  sabre  bayonet  bravely  held  the  narrow 
gate  against  all  coiners. 

The  joke  was  altogether  too  good  to  keep, 
but  it  was  hardly  the  correct  thing  to  intrude 
upon  the  President's  privacy  at  that  hour.  It 
w^as  lucky  that  the  door  between  his  room  and 
Mr.  Nicolay's  Avas  open  so  that  I  could  see 
him,  all  alone,  writing  something  at  his  desk. 
Something  important,  perhaps,  for  he  lifted  his 
head  from  it  with  a  clouded  face  when  I  spoke 
to  him.  I  had  a  curious  idea,  however,  that  I 
was  doing  him  good  w^hile  I  told  my  story, 
and  at  the  end  of  it  he  was  laughing  merrily. 

"  Seward  !  "  he  said.  "  And  Stanton  !  And 
old  Ben !  Well,  well !  I  guess  I'd  better  send 
for  the  officer  on  duty,  whoever  he  is,  and  tell 
him  to  let  up  a  little.  The  orders  against 
smoking  don't  include  this  part  of  the  camp." 

The  captain  of  the  company  on  guard  was 
sent  for,  and  he  came.  He  was  a  good-looking 
3^oung  fellow,  and  I  had  a  perception  that 
only  his  deep  respect  for  the  President  kept 
down,  or  back,  the  broad  grin  that  began  upon 
his  face.  He  received  the  direct  orders  given 
him  by  the  commander-in-chief,  and  bowed 
his  way  out.  Perhaps  he  was  not  at  all  sorry 
to  have  such  an  incident  to  tell  of  in  his  after 
days. 


THE  SENTRY  AT  THE  GATE  111 

My  own  work  called  me  to  my  loaded 
table,  and  there  was  the  end  of  the  matter,  ex- 
cept that  only  a  few  days  later  all  the  formal 
and  useless  guard-mounting  and  patrol  duty 
was  dispensed  with.  It  was  not  at  all  to  the 
taste  of  Mr.  Lincoln.  He  objected  strenuously 
to  military  surroundings  and  to  "  fuss  and 
feathers "  of  every  description.  Formalism 
burdened  him. 

Long  years  afterward,  I  was  again  in 
Washington,  and  was,  one  summer  evening, 
the  guest  of  a  pleasant  private  family.  Its 
older  and  younger  members  were  recalling  in- 
cidents of  the  war,  and  for  my  contribution 
I  told  the  story  of  the  German  sentry  at  the 
White  House  gate.  Somewhat  quiet  until 
then,  and  sitting  in  a  corner,  had  been  a 
bearded  young  fellow,  who  listened  and 
laughed  until  the  end ;  and  then  he  said,  "  I 
guess  you  don't  remember  me."  He  had  been 
introduced  to  me  as  a  nephew  of  the  lady  of 
the  house ;  but  I  could  say,  "  No,  I  don't  think 
we  have  ever  met  before." 

"  Yes,  we  have ! "  he  replied,  with  another 
outburst  of  fun.  "  I  was  the  cavalryman ! 
We've  all  heard  that  story  before.  I  just 
wanted  to  know,  though,  what  Lincoln  said 
about  it." 

He  had  other  points  to  add,  and  perhaps 


112  LINCOLN  AT   WORK 

there  is  not  now  any  very  great  value  attach- 
ing to  it,  but  we  do  owe  to  President  Lincoln 
something  for  his  persistent  preservation  of 
the  supremacy  of  the  civil  authority  over  any 
and  every  development  of  militarism.  There 
may  yet  come  another  national  occasion  when 
his  example  may  profitably  be  referred  to. 


.  The  Messenger 

to  the  -^'-- 


President 


iNE  of  the  many  curious  demands 
made  upon  Mr.  Lincoln  b}^  his 
^^  critics  during  the  war  was  om- 
niscience. It  was  his  duty  to  see 
and  hear  everything,  no  matter  how  far  away, 
and  then  to  act  upon  his  perfect  information 
in  accordance  with  the  course  of  future  events. 
Something  like  the  same  idea  has  crept  into 
the  work  of  later  commentators  upon  his  ad- 
ministration. 

He  was  a  broad-minded  and  subtle  analyst 
and  judge  of  whatever  information  came  to 
him,  and  that  he  was  so  rarely  misled  affords 
us  a  striking,  and  all  but  marvellous,  presen- 
tation of  his  peculiar  genius.  The  central  fact 
remains,  however,  that  the  great  mass  of  his 
information,  of  whatever  kind,  reached  him 
through  official  channels.  Every  despatch 
from  the  armies  or  the  fleets,  all  correspond- 
ence upon  either  civil  or  military  affairs,  was 
sure  to  be  tinged,  more  or  less,  by  the  feelings, 
opinions,  or  interests  of  individuals.  Each 
person  communicating  with  him  might  be 
honest,  honorable,  even  capable  ;  but  each  was 

113 


114  LINCOLN  AT  WORK 

an  individual  man,  not  all-\Yise  nor  all- 
knowing. 

Constitutionally  as  well  as  officially  Mr. 
Lincoln  was  keenly  eager  to  obtain  the  exact 
truth  in  any  case,  and  it  sometimes  came  to 
him  through  by  and  forbidden  paths.  One  of 
these  paths  began  at  a  roadside  in  the  rear  of 
the  Army  of  the  Potomac,  nearly  at  the  close 
of  the  hard  fighting  in  what  is  best  known  as 
the  second  battle  of  Bull  Run.  It  will  serve 
sufficiently  well  as  an  illustration. 

A  loud  voice  called  out,  in  a  tone  that 
indicated    surprise,    "  What !    are    you   here, 

Harrv  ?  " 

"  Yes,  general,"  came  back  from  the  road- 
side. "  I  'm  helping  take  care  of  the  wounded. 
Secretary  Chase  sent  me  over  w^ith  a  lot  of  us 
treasury  clerks  as  soon  as  he  heard  that  the 
battle  was  going  on." 

"  My  boy,"  sharply  exclaimed  the  general, 
"you  are  just  the  man  I  want !  Your  brother 
is  one  of  Lincoln's  private  secretaries.  He  can 
get  in  a  message  to  the  President  that  no  army 
officer  could  carry.  It  would  n't  go  straight 
in  at  once  if  he  did  carry  it.  You  come  along 
with  me." 

A  few  yards  away  from  the  spot  w^here  he 
had  reined  in  his  horse,  a  brace  of  armv  sur- 
geons  were  busily  at  work  among  a  ghastly 


THE  MESSENGER   TO   THE  PRESIDENT      115 

gathering  of  shot-shattered  soldiers,  brought 
in  from  the  hist  battle-fiekh  The  general  was 
a  fine-looking  man,  but  his  face  wore  now  an 
almost  broken-hearted  expression,  mingled 
with  something  that  told  of  anger  as  well  as 
disappointment.  lie  might  well  be  feeling 
deeply,  for  he  was  aware  of  the  net  results  of 
that  day's  collision  with  the  Confederate  forces 
under  General  Lee.  Hardly  as  much  was  yet 
known  by  the  Union  army  itself,  except  its 
more  badly  beaten  corps.  In  the  far  distance 
at  this  hour  cannon  were  still  sounding.  Ee- 
serves  and  re-enforcements  were  still  moving 
toward  the  front,  while  all  that  "front"  was 
rushing  back  discomfited,  disordered,  nearly 
ruined. 

The  Union  forces  had  everywhere  fought 
well,  heroically.  If  any  blame  for  the  disaster 
belonged  anywhere,  it  did  not  belong  to  the 
soldiers.  JSTo  man  could  yet  say,  decisively, 
upon  whose  shoulders  it  should  be  laid.  To 
this  day  the  controversy  concerning  this 
point  may  fairly  be  regarded  as  unsettled, 
long  and  thorough  as  has  been  the  examina- 
tion. 

The  corps-commander,  for  such  was  the 
general's  rank,  rode  slowly  along  with  Harry 
trudging  at  the  side  of  his  horse. 

"  You   are   something  of  a  dandy,  Harry," 


116  LINCOLN  AT   WORK 

he  remarked  :  "  but  you  don't  look  much  like 
one  just  now." 

"  It 's  been  awful ! "  was  all  that  his  young 
friend  could  reply ;  for  he  had  been  at  his  ter- 
rible work  through  many  hours,  and  his  hands 
and  clothes,  and  even  his  face,  bore  red  tokens 
of  its  character.  After  that  they  went  on  for 
a  little  distance  in  silence,  and  then  the  gen- 
eral halted,  pointing  forward. 

"  There  's  the  tent,"  he  said.  "  It  will  not  be 
a  council  of  war.  jSTothing  of  the  kind  has 
been  formally  summoned.  Ko  report  of  this 
meeting  will  ever  be  made  officially,  but  I 
have  sent  for  the  men  I  want  the  President  to 
hear  from.  Some  know  it,  and  some  do  not. 
You  will  come  in  and  sit  down  by  me.  Take 
no  written  notes.  That  wouldn't  do.  Take 
every  man's  name.  Hear  every  Avord  that  is 
said,  questions  and  answers.  Then  go  and  tell 
Abraham  Lincoln  precisely  what  you  have 
heard,  no  more,  no  less.  I  want  him  to  know 
the  exact  truth  and  the  exact  feeling  of  the 
best  officers  in  this  army." 

He  gave  his  own  views  very  fully  and  freely 
to  begin  with.  It  appeared,  also,  that  Harry, 
who  held  a  high  position  under  the  secretary 
of  the  treasury,  had  won  an  exceptional  rep- 
utation for  the  accuracy  and  retentiveness  of 
his  memory. 


THE  3IESSENGEE   TO   THE  PRESIDENT      117 

These  were  the  very  dark  days  of  the  Civil 
AYar,  after  the  failure  of  the  Peninsular  cam- 
paign. This  particular  day  seemed  to  grow 
darker  every  minute  after  the  great  marquee 
tent  of  the  commanding  general  was  reached. 
There  appeared  to  be  great  excitement  all 
around,  and  many  were  coming  and  going. 
Officers  and  orderlies  carrying  despatches  rode 
to  and  fro  at  full  gallop.  In  the  tent  itself  no 
one  was  likely  to  note  or  care  for  the  presence 
of  one  youth  more,  seeming  to  be  there  in  at- 
tendance upon  a  corps-commander.  Several 
of  these  and  of  other  officers  of  high  rank 
arrived,  and  one  of  them  in  particular  expressed 
himself  forcibly  concerning  the  militar}^  situa- 
tion before  he  dismounted  from  his  horse. 

It  could  not  be  called  a  council  of  war.  It 
was  not  even  a  debatino^  society.  It  was  an 
altogether  informal  coming  together  of  a  num- 
ber of  angry  critics,  leaders  of  a  defeated 
army,  it  might  be,  but  as  resolute  and  as  ca- 
pable as  ever.  In  such  a  gathering  they  could 
and  did  say  many  things  which  would  not 
have  been  inserted,  even  by  themselves,  in  any 
despatch  to  the  war  department.  Perhaps 
one  or  two  of  them  spoke  none  the  less  freely 
because  of  an  intimation  that  they  were  trans- 
mitting their  best  opinions  to  the  commander- 
in-chief,  the  President. 


118  LINCOLN  AT   WORK 

Harry  sat  and  listened,  his  pale  face  glow- 
ing with  excitement  or  growing  paler  with 
grief  as  he  learned  the  sad  extent  of  the  disas- 
ters, the  details  of  which  were  unfolded. 

"  Get  out,  now,"  said  his  friend,  at  last. 
"  Can  you  remember  ?  " 

"  I  can  repeat  every  word,"  said  Harry  de- 
cidedly. "  I  shall  not  miss  any  part  of  it. 
But  how  on  earth  am  I  to  get  to  Washington  ? 
There  is  n't  a  horse  to  be  had." 

"  I  '11  attend  to  that,"  replied  the  general, 
glancing  up  the  road.  "  There 's  one  yonder. 
Horse  enough  to  carry  bad  news." 

An  army  w^agon  had  broken  down  at  the 
roadside,  its  damaged  front  w^heel  stuck  in  a 
ditch,  and  its  driver  had  unhitched  his  three 
spans  of  mules. 

The  general  ordered  him  to  put  a  bridle 
upon  one  of  these,  but  there  was  no  saddle  to 
be  had.  A  blanket  was  strapped  on  instead, 
and  the  important  messenger's  steed  was  ready. 

"Take  that  order  to  the  quartermaster  at 
Alexandria,"  said  the  general.  "  He  will  send 
you  to  Washington  on  a  special  boat.  The 
President  will  ha\^e  plenty  of  despatches  be- 
fore you  get  there,  but  none  like  yours  for  a 
day  or  two.  They  are  breaking  the  news  of 
this  thing  a  little  too  gently." 

Away  went  Harry,  and  his  mule  "was  really 


TEE  MESSENGER   TO   THE  PRESIDENT      119 

a  good  one,  glad,  perhaps,  to  have  a  free  run 
with  no  army  wagon  behind  him. 

Dark,  dark,  dark  was  that  ride  of  the  young 
messenger,  and  his  heart  was  the  heaviest 
thing  carried  by  his  willing  mule.  He  had 
sights  to  see  as  he  went.  Wounded  men  on 
stretchers,  ambulances,  guns,  disordered  de- 
tachments, confusion,  the  wrecks  of  any  great 
battle,  whether  lost  or  won. 

The  dead  on  each  side  were  thousands,  the 
wounded  were  thousands  more,  and  the  Con- 
federate forces  themselves  had  been  badly 
shattered.  How  he  found  the  needful  author- 
ity in  Alexandria,  Harry  afterwards  hardly 
knew,  for  he  hunted  him  up  in  a  kind  of  ap- 
parent chaos  that  was  really  nothing  more 
than  the  customary  rush  and  whirl  of  vast 
military  movements. 

At  last,  nevertheless,  a  steam-tug  was  bear- 
ing him  swiftly  up  the  Potomac  toward  Wash- 
ington, and  she  seemed  to  him  to  have  no 
other  passenger  than  the  courier  of  the  last 
battle. 

The  next  morning  the  usual  routine  of  work 
was  but  just  beginning  in  the  Executive  Man- 
sion. Miscellaneous  visitors  were  not  yet  ad- 
mitted, but  the  President  was  in  his  room, 
and  he  was  alone.  The  secretary  in  charge  of 
the  White  House  correspondence  was  sitting 


120  LINCOLN  AT   WORK 

behind  bis  table  in  the  northeast  room,  busily 
opening  and  reading  numberless  letters,  when 
the  door  in  front  of  him  swung  open,  and 
an  extraordinary,  uncomely,  disorderly  shape 
strode  hastily  to  his  very  elboAv.  Mud,  blood, 
torn  clothes,  pallor,  a  battered  hat, —  some 
vagabond  who  had  broken  in  past  the  door- 
keeper. 

"  Bill !  I  must  see  the  President  right  away ! 
I'm  from  the  battle!" 

"  Harry  ?  Is  this  you  ?  I  did  n't  know  you  ! 
What  is  it  ?  " 

"  I  must  n't  tell  you,  nor  anybody  but  Mr. 
Lincoln.     It 's  private  news  for  him " 

"  Stand  still  a  moment." 

Up  sprung  the  secretary,  and  hastened  across 
the  hall  into  the  President's  room.  Bending 
gloomily  over  a  pile  of  despatches,  Mr.  Lincoln 
at  first  hardly  turned  his  head  when  spoken 
to ;  but  he  listened,  bending  even  lower  for  a 
moment,  as  if  some  burden  had  suddenly  grown 
heavier. 

''  Bring  your  brother  right  in  !  " 

JSTot  another  word  spoken,  only  a  knitting 
of  the  dark  brows  and  a  deepening  of  the  deep 
wrinkles. 

A  minute  more,  and  Harry  was  alone  with 
the  commander-in-chief,  the  man  who  always 
found  it  so  very  difficult  to  obtain  exact  infor- 


THE  MESSENGER   TO    THE  PRESIDENT      121 

mation  that  he  felt  at  times  as  if  he  was  walk- 
ing on  in  the  dark. 

Half  an  hour  or  more  went  by,— it  seemed 
much  longer, — and  the  bell  over  the  secretary's 
table  summoned  him  to  Mr.  Lincoln's  room. 

"  Take  your  brother  to  Stanton.  Take  this 
card,  and  he  will  see  you  at  once.  He  must 
know  this  instantly.    It  is  of  vast  importance." 

"  Come  on,  Bill,"  whispered  Harry.  ''  I  'm 
almost  dead,  but  I  can  stand  it  through." 

As  they  walked  along  together,  out  of  the 
White  House  and  toward  the  War  Depart- 
ment, the  messenger  gave  his  brother  a  suffi- 
ciently full  account  of  himself,  and  of  his  do- 
ings, but  not  of  the  utterances  of  the  several 
division  commanders  who  had  composed  the 
corps  and  informal  council  or  army  conference. 

Stanton's  office  was  reached,  and  the  gruff 
secretary  of  war  put  aside  a  number  of  bril- 
liant uniforms  to  take  the  grimy  courier  into 
his  private  room,  where  none  but  he  could 
hear.  An  hour  went  by,  and  out  he  came 
with  Harry.  "  Stoddard,"  he  said,  ''  not  a 
word  to  anybody ;  but  your  brother  must  see 
Halleck.  It  lets  new  light  into  the  whole 
affair.     He  has  done  it  well." 

A  clerk  led  the  way,  and  General  Halleck  in 
turn  put  aside  all  other  affairs  to  listen  and 
question  carefully.     He  was  at  that  time  the 


122  LINCOLN  AT  WORK 

trusted  and  almost  supreme  military  adviser 
of  the  administration ;  and  he,  too,  may  at 
times  have  been  puzzled  by  conflicting  reports 
from  here  and  there.  He  was  a  calm,  schol- 
arly-looking man,  of  exceedingly  firm  nerves, 
a  scientific  general  rather  than  a  leader  in  the 
field.  All  the  more,  for  that  reason,  was  he 
well  fitted  for  the  vastly  important  post  to 
which  he  had  been  appointed.  His  inquiries 
in  the  present  case  were  thorough,  and  con- 
sumed much  time  ;  but  before  they  were  ended 
Lincoln  was  with  Stanton,  and  Halleck  was 
sent  for. 

"  What 's  next,  Harry  ?  "  asked  his  brother. 

"  Next  ?  Why,  I  must  get  a  bath  and  some- 
thing to  eat.  Then  I  must  go  to  bed.  I 
must  n't  say  a  word  to  a  living  soul  about  this 
matter,  though.  You  mustn't,  either,"  said 
the  messenger. 

"  I  ?  "  almost  laughed  the  secretary.  "  Humph ! 
My  special  business,  year  in  and  year  out,  is 
keeping  my  mouth  shut  and  forgetting  things. 
About  a  good  many  matters  I  must  forget  as 
long  as  I  live.  There  is  going  to  be  a  sharp 
inquiry  over  this  defeat,  though.  It  should 
have  been  a  victory.  Our  men  fought  splen- 
didly." 

"  So  they  did,"  groaned  Harry.  "  I  never 
want  to  see  a  battle-field  again,  Bill.     I  wish 


THE  MESSENGER   TO   THE  PRESIDENT      123 

I  could  forget.  There 's  nothing  else  so  awful. 
The  wounded  are  worse  to  see  than  the  dead. 
I  wish  the  war  were  over." 

He  slowly  walked  away,  faint  and  sick. 
The  secretary  hurried  back  to  his  post  of  duty. 
Lincoln  returned  to  his  White  House  room. 
There  were  torrents  of  despatches  and  reports 
after  that,  but  the  best  generals  in  the  Army 
of  the  Potomac  had  already  sent  their  un- 
pruned  opinions  to  the  President.  They  had, 
for  the  greater  part,  unwittingly  sent  them  by 
an  army  mule,  carrying  Secretary  Chase's  con- 
fidential clerk.  It  has  been  said,  "  A  bird  of 
the  air  shall  carry  the  voice " ;  and  so  he 
might,  if  he  were  sitting  in  the  tent  corner 
while  the  matter  was  undergoing  altogether 
free  discussion,  and  if  then  he  could  find  any 
means  of  carrjnng  it  to  Mr.  Lincoln  himself. 


wiri,,:,,,i|«||j^ 


'HERE  have  been  crises  in  our  na- 
tional history  when  it  has  seemed 
that  too  great  a  concentration  of 
power  in  the  hands  of  a  popular 
army  leader  threatened  to  render  the  civil  au- 
thority subordinate.  From  each  of  these 
perils  as  it  came  we  have  been  delivered  by 
the  stubborn  jealousy  of  our  successive  Con- 
gresses and  also  by  the  wisdom  and  unselfish 
patriotism  of  individual  statesmen.  To  George 
lYashino-ton  himself  we  owe  our  first  and 
greatest  debt,  and  the  record  of  what  he  did 
and  how  he  did  it  is  an  interesting  study.  At 
the  close  of  the  Civil  War  there  were  months 
of  disorder  and  confusion  during  which  it  was 
well  for  the  intemty  of  our  institutions  that 
the  power  concentrated  was  in  the  hands  of 
Ulysses  S.  Grant.  A  weaker  or  a  more  am- 
bitious man  might  then  have  done  irreparable 
mischief.  Minor  instances  occurring  between 
these  indicated  dates  could  hardly  be  presented 
without  too  extended  an  historical  explana- 
tion. 

124 


THE    WRESTLING-MATCH  125 

The  American  people,  like  all  others,  has  ex- 
hibited a  strong  tendency  to  glorify  military 
success,  and  has  now  and  then  manufactured 
its  heroes  of  the  moment  out  of  somewhat  de- 
fective materials.  There  have  been  American 
demiaods  that  melted  awav  like  so  many  snow 
images  as  soon  as  they  were  placed  out  under 
the  clear  sunshine. 

Probably  there  will  always  be  occasional 
clashings  between  the  habitual  dictatorship  of 
military  authority  and  the  slower,  law-bound 
methods  of  the  civil  power.  The  latter  may 
even  operate  detrimentally  under  certain  cir- 
cumstances, but  Ave  have  wisely  decided  that 
we  will  endure  any  such  detriment  rather  than 
run  the  risks  involved  in  a  consent  to  avoid  it 
by  giving  even  temporary  or  incidental  su- 
premacy to  any  army  leader. 

We  formulate  our  expression  of  this  decision 
by  making  the  President  of  the  United  States 
the  commander-in-chief  of  the  army  and  navy, 
although  he  may  not  know  enough  of  war  to 
drill  a  corporal's  guard  or  of  seamanship  to 
row  a  boat.  He  is,  of  course,  supposed  to 
have  his  professional  advisers,  but  these  are 
not  to  be  his  directors.  Each  of  our  chief 
magistrates  in  turn  has  distinguished  himself 
by  the  wisdom  and  moderation  with  which  he 
has  exercised  this  tremendous  prerogative.     In   ^ 


126  LINCOLN  AT  WORK 

it,  however,  hardly  hidden  at  all  is  the  unques- 
tionably dictatorial  authority  which  Avas  so 
freely  exercised  by  Abraham  Lincoln. 

Of  him  it  is  also  recorded,  on  the  declara- 
tions of  General  Grant  and  others,  that  he  did 
not  meddle  Avith  actual  operations  of  armies 
and  commanders  in  the  field.  Each  general 
intrusted  with  the  direction  of  a  campaign 
was  sustained  to  the  uttermost  by  the  Presi- 
dent, and  was  left  altogether  unhampered  by 
the  civil  authority  to  Avhich  he  was  neverthe- 
less  held  responsible  for  his  successes  or  his 
defeats.  The  few  collisions  which  at  any 
time  occurred  were  brought  about  by  some 
semblances  of  political  action  outside  of  affairs 
properly  military,  on  the  part  of  officers  hold- 
ing important  commands. 

The  first  notable  clashing  of  this  kind  was 
between  the  President  and  General  Fremont, 
when  that  overhasty  patriot  assumed  to  ex- 
ercise in  the  West  functions  which  did  not  law- 
fully belong  to  him. 

Another,  apparently  more  dangerous, 
marked  the  military  and  civil  career  of  Gen. 
Georo^e  B.  McClellan.  There  could  be  no 
question  of  either  the  ability  or  the  patriot- 
ism of  that  magnificently  equipped  military 
scholar.  President  Lincoln  himself  once  said 
to  me  concerning  him,  in  reply  to  a  question 


THE    WRESTLING-MATCH  127 

of  my  own :  "  Well,  Stoddard,  I  will  say  it ; 
for  organizing  an  army,  for  preparing  an  army 
for  the  field,  for  fighting  a  defensive  campaign, 
I  will  back  General  McClellan  against  any 
general  of  modern  times.  I  don't  know  but 
of  ancient  times,  either.  But  I  begin  to  be- 
lieve that  he  will  never  get  ready  to  go  for- 
ward." 

That  was  said  while  the  Army  of  the  Po- 
tomac was  wasting  away  uselessly  in  its  camps 
and  forts  among  the  Virginia  hills  south  of 
Washington,  and  while  its  commanding  gen- 
eral was  developing  his  views  upon  the  polit- 
ical aspects  of  the  Avar. 

After  that  came  the  long  agony  of  the  pain- 
fully protracted  and  disastrous  "  Peninsular 
campaign,"  from  which  the  army  at  last  re- 
turned to  very  much  its  old  places  south  of 
the  Potomac  and  the  capital.  AYith  it  came  its 
exceedingl}^  popular  general,  and  there  was  an 
unconcealed  antagonism  between  him  and  Mr. 
Lincoln,  not  only  upon  questions  which  were 
political  rather  than  military,  but  also  upon 
others,  the  solution  whereof  actually  did  in- 
clude the  constitutional  provision  and  the  su- 
preme direction  of  all  the  forces  of  the  nation. 

The  general  once  more  had  a  temporary 
residence  in  AVashington,  not  many  minutes' 
walk  from  the  Executive  Mansion.     Here,  in 


128  LINCOLN  AT   WORK 

my  northeast  room,  I  Avas  sitting  one  evening, 
deeply  absorbed  in  my  work.  So  interested 
had  I  become  in  an  epistle  of  unusual  import- 
ance that  I  was  entirely  unaware  of  anybody 
else  coming  in  or  going  out,  until  a  low,  weary- 
sounding  voice  at  my  elbow  said  to  me  :  "  Leave 
that,  and  come  with  me.  I  am  going  over  to 
McClellan's  house."  ^ot  another  word  was 
uttered.  I  arose  in  silence,  picked  up  my  hat, 
and  walked  out  of  the  house  Avith  him.  There 
was  that  in  his  manner  which  forbade  ques- 
tion or  remark.  I  was  aware  of  having  some 
such  feelino^  as  a  man  mav  have  when  he  is 
lookino:  at  a  very  black  thundercloud  with  an 
idea  that  a  stormy  gust  is  in  it.  Thunder  and 
lightning  sometimes  come  out  of  such  clouds, 
you  know,  and  the  tallest  trees  go  down  sud- 
denly. Even  army  tents,  big  ones,  might  be 
blown  away  by  one  of  those  thunder-gusts. 

European  etiquette,  a  very  important  bit  of 
governmental  machinery,  after  its  kind,  might 
have  forbidden  the  commander-in-chief  to  run 
over  in  this  manner  to  ask  questions  of  a  sub- 
ordinate. It  was,  to  a  European  diplomati-c 
mind,  something  like  an  open  confession  of 
weakness.  The  inferior  should  have  been  sent 
for,  not  visited.  Mr.  Lincoln  knew  hardly 
anything  about  etiquette  or  diplomacy.  He 
had  had  some  experience  with  an  axe,  however, 


THE    WRESTLING-3IATCH  129 

and  he  could  drive  in.  the  edge  of  one  to  the 
very  eye. 

!N"ot  one  word  did  he  speak  to  me,  that  I 
can  remember,  as  we  walked  along.  He  was 
accompanied,  as  may  be  seen,  by  his  brilliant 
ofRcial  staff,  as.  became  a  commander-in-chief 
on  his  way  to  order  the  movements  of  armies 
and  to  determine  the  political  future  of  the 
republic. 

The  house  was  reached ;  the  door-bell  was 
rung ;  and  we  were  admitted.  We  were  ush- 
ered into  an  ample  and  elegantly  furnished 
drawing-room.  Mr.  Lincoln  drew  a  chair  to  a 
place  near  the  centre-table,  and  sat  down  with 
his  face  toward  the  doorway  from  the  hall.  I 
found  a  seat  somewhat  more  in  the  background, 
or  on  the  other  side  of  the  table.  I  was  like 
a  spectator  in  a  theatre,  waiting  for  the  cur- 
tain to  rise ;  but  I  was  wrong  about  that,  for 
the  first  act  had  begun. 

Time  enough  was  to  be  given  for  the  Presi- 
dent to  collect  his  thoughts  and  mature  his 
purposes  after  his  arrival  was  announced  to 
the  commander  of  the  Army  of  the  Potomac. 
Yery  possibly  that  brilliant  and  accomplished 
leader  had  just  then  in  hand  important  army 
matters.  If  so,  due  attention  must  indeed  be 
accorded  to  them,  and  a  mere  civilian  might 
well  wait. 


130  LINCOLN  AT   WORK 

Minutes  went  bv,  and  I  was  conscious  that 
the  hot  blood  of  angry  indignation  was  tin- 
gling all  over  me.  My  cheeks  seemed  on  fire, 
and  my  lips  were  trembling ;  but  Mr.  Lincoln 
sat  with  a  smile  growing  grimly  on  his  face, 
and  the  thundercloud  had  entirely  disap- 
peared. 

There  came  a  sound  of  feet  on  the  stairs  in 
the  hallway  and  a  rattle  of  clattering  metal 
as  if  somebodv's  blade  were  loose  in  its  scab- 
bard  and  banged  against  a  baluster.  Then 
followed  a  rushing  entrance  of  elegant  men  in 
fine  uniforms,  epauleted,  startling  ;  and  I  took 
note  that  the  President  had  on  a  seedy  black 
cutaway  coat.  No  epaulets.  Xo  sword.  Xo 
grandeur.  Nevertheless,  he  seemed  to  me  a 
number  of  yards  taller  than  was  either  the 
general  or  the  two  members  of  his  staff,  Gen- 
eral Marcy  and  another,  who  came  in  with  him. 

'^Vas  there  any  apology  made  for  keeping 
the  President  waiting  ?  Not  a  word,  for  Mr. 
Lincoln  almost  instantly  asked  a  question 
which  sent  all  other  subjects  of  conversation, 
as  it  were,  to  the  tombs  of  the  Capulets.  It 
must  be  said  for  General  McClellail  and  his 
personal  movements  that  he  seemed  the  ver}^ 
impersonation  of  dash,  vigor,  firmness,  de- 
cision. He  had  a  vast  amount  of  what  is 
called    personal   magnetism.     He  now  took  a 


THE    WRESTLING  31  ATCII  131 

seat  with  a  singular  air  of  being  not  only  at 
home,  but  altogether  the  master  of  the  situa- 
tion, and  again  I  felt  my  hot  blood  mounting. 
I  was  entirely  cured  by  staring  at  Mr.  Lin- 
coln ;  for  that  strange,  phenomenal  smile  of 
his  was  deepening,  l^ever  mind,  now,  what 
were  the  subjects  which  were  brought  forward 
for  discussion,  or,  rather,  as  it  proved,  for  the 
patiently  reached  declaration  of  Mr.  Lincoln's 
final  decision.  I  was  not  there  as  a  reporter, 
but  only  as  the  President's  magnificent  staff, 
in  a  gray  sack  suit,  unsashed,  unsworded. 

The  President  had  at  the  first  arisen  to 
greet  politel}^  the  arm}^  men,  as  they  came  in 
to  call  upon  him  in  what  had  suddenly  changed, 
somehow,  into  a  drawing-room  of  his  own. 
He  was  evidently  even  pleased  to  see  them, 
and  was  glad  that  they  had  taken  the  trouble 
to  come  down-stairs  and  learn  from  his  own 
lips  what  orders  he  might  have  to  give  them. 

All  of  that,  however,  was  said  by  his  man- 
ner only,  and  not  at  all  by  w^ords.  The  gen- 
eral felt,  comprehended,  and  resented  instantly. 
He  was  himself  a  perfect  master  of  conversa- 
tional w^arfare.  The  slow,  guarded,  thought- 
ful exchange  of  brief  sentences  which  followed 
became  wonderfully  interesting.  It  was  a 
great  wrestling-match,  so  to  speak,  between 
two  extraordinary  athletes. 


132  LINCOLN  AT   WORK 

There  could  be  no  question  of  the  general's 
superiority  in  training,  experience,  all  manner 
of  information  relating  to  military  affairs. 
Mr.  Lincoln  admitted  it,  skilf ull}^,  deferentially, 
and  then  that  fact  disappeared  from  the  arena. 
As  he  himself  once  remarked,  "  Some  kinds  of 
powder  can't  be  burnt  but  once." 

General  McClellan  had  great  will  power,  and 
he  hardly  tried  to  conceal  his  sense  of  the  py- 
ramidal strength  of  his  official  and  political 
position.  Mr.  Lincoln  did  not  dispute  it  at  all, 
and  he  listened  quite  respectfully  to  a  very  few 
deprecator}^  remarks  made  by  General  Marcy 
and  the  accompanying  colonel,  whoever  he 
was.  They  also  were  respectfully  aware  of  the 
superiority,  at  such  a  crisis,  of  the  military  au- 
thority over  the  absurdly  elevated  civil  power. 

One  listening  could  not  but  begin  to  see  be- 
yond that  drawing-room  theatre  and  its  wres- 
tlers. ]^ot  only  awful  battles,  extended  war 
operations,  but  political  agitations  also  and  fu- 
ture presidential  elections,  might  be  prophetic- 
ally discerned,  taking  dim  shapes  in  a  back- 
ground that  was  very  near  indeed.  The  future 
of  the  country,  North  and  South,  and  in  imme- 
diate particular,  the  policy,  the  direction,  and 
the  fate  of  the  Lincoln  administration,  Avere 
being  apparently  wrestled  for.  So  it  appeared 
to  one  who  saw  and  heard  as  a  critical  spec- 


THE   WEESTLING-3IATCH  133 

tator,  but  so  it  was  not,  in  reality.  The  room 
became  more  and  more  fully  occupied  by  the 
incomparably  stronger  individuality  of  the  tall, 
Titanic  athlete  to  whom  the  victory  was  as- 
sured from  the  beginning.  By  no  possibility 
could  Mr.  Lincoln  have  been  overcome,  and  he 
carried  point  after  point  without  the  slightest 
appearance  of  making  an  effort. 

The  general  grew  more  and  more  deferen- 
tially courteous,  less  and  less  declaratory  of  his 
idea  that  the  supreme  command  belonged  to 
him.  All  manner  of  politics  drifted  out  of 
sight,  and  only  the  coming  movements  of  the 
several  armies  remained,  to  be  left  to  him,  skil- 
fully, by  Mr.  Lincoln,  after  their  nature,  in  out- 
line, had  been  pretty  fully  set  forth  and  agreed 
upon. 

The  long  interview,  so  extraordinary,  so  in- 
teresting, so  important,  came  to  an  end  at  last. 
The  colonel  had  gone  to  other  duties  long 
since,  and  only  General  McClellan  and  General 
Marcy  remained.  They  were  both  unusually 
fine-looking  men,  and  they  bowed  with  grace 
and  dignity  as  the  civil  power  of  the  United 
States  walked  out  of  the  house  every  whit  as 
supreme  as  ever. 

What  did  I  do  ? 

Why,  I  had  entirely  recovered  my  unfortu- 
nate temper,  and  I  walked  along  with  Mr. 


134 


LINCOLN  AT   WORK 


Lincoln,  looking  up  to  him  every  now  and  then 
as  if  he  were  an  exceeclino^lv  tall  man.  I  think 
he  laughed  aloud  once  or  tvyice ;  but  he  did  not 


^"^  '\-X».^\«  "^ 


"  Every  whit  as  supreme  as  ever." 


tell  me  why,  and  I  did  not  go  back  to  my  work 
again  that  night,  for  the  hour  was  late  when 
the  commander-in-chief  and  his  staff  re-entered 
the  Executive  Mansion. 


^EYOND  a  doubt,  the  people  of  the 
United  States,  learned  or  unlearned, 
are  exceedingly  critical.  A  very- 
considerable  part  of  them  may  also 
be  described  as  fastidious.  The  number,  vari- 
ety, and  character  of  our  periodicals,  with  their 
comparative  prosperities,  present  all  the  infor- 
mation necessary  upon  this  point.  Any  one 
interested  in  the  study  of  it,  however,  may  dis- 
cover somewhat  more  upon  close  investigation. 
Here  and  there,  not  by  any  means  too  fre- 
quently, he  will  find  the  marvel  of  a  joke,  a 
poem,  an  utterance  of  patriotism  or  of  states- 
manship, which  has  been  printed  and  reprinted 
in  almost  every  journal,  large  or  small. 

In  every  case  the  matter  so  perpetually  re- 
appearing has  been  something  brief,  simple; 
often  it  is  plain  even  to  homeliness.  These  are 
the  things  which  pass  the  criticism  of  the 
masses,  whatever  opinion  concerning  them  may 
be  entertained  by  the  fastidious  minority. 
E'ow  and  then,  even  to  this  day,  there  have 
been  utterances  of  this  sort,  sure  to  reach  the 

135 


136  LINCOLN  AT  WORK 

minds  and  stir  the  hearts  of  the  people,  which 
for  some  reason  call  out  the  remark,  "  That 
reminds  one  of  Abraham  Lincoln."  That  this 
is  so  illustrates  well  the  popular  memory  and 
thought  which  treasures  yet  his  peculiar  faculty 
for  forcible  expression. 

How,  then,  did  he  attain  and  how  did  he 
exercise  his  undeniable  power  in  the  exact  uses 
of  words  and  phrases  ?  Was  he  in  the  habit 
of  striking  off  at  random,  like  sparks  from  flint 
and  steel,  the  fiery  utterances  which  kindled 
instantly  any  combustible  material  in  the  minds 
and  hearts  of  all  who  heard  or  read  ?  Not  so. 
He  had  much  in  his  mind  which  was  ready  at 
any  moment  when  demanded,  and  he  could 
give  an  answer  promptly  enough  and  vigor- 
ously. It  is  not  too  much  to  say,  however, 
that  he  never  wrote  or  said  anything  intended 
by  him  to  be  of  general  effect  and  value  with- 
out permitting  it  to  take  form  slowly  in  his 
heart  and  brain  in  long  processes  of  prepara- 
tion. 

It  would  be  interesting  in  this  connection  to 
know  the  stages  of  the  elaboration  of  his  brief, 
seemingly  almost  spontaneous,  but  imperish- 
able, Gettysburg  sj^eech.  A  close  analysis  of 
its  perfect  sentences  proves  that  it  is  a  formu- 
lation of  thoughts  and  feelings  which  belonged 
to  the  inner  life  of  the  speaker.     It  was  there- 


UNCLE  SAJI'S    WEB-FEET  137 

fore  something'  like  a  jewel  already  polished 
that  he  took  out  of  its  casket  and  set  forever 
in  the  memories  of  his  countrymen.  It  is  re- 
lated of  him  that  his  great  Springfield  speech 
in  1858,  in  which  occurs  the  then  tremendous 
declaration,  "A  house  divided  against  itself 
cannot  stand  ;  I  do  not  believe  this  govern- 
ment can  endure  permanently,  half  slave  and 
half  free,"  was  written  a  scrap  at  a  time,  day 
after  day,  on  odds  and  ends  of  waste  paper,  old 
letter-backs,  envelopes,  and  the  like.  Tiiese  at 
last  Avere  collected  and  consolidated  like  the 
stones  and  timbers  of  a  new  building,  the  archi- 
tect fitting  them  well  together  and  making  the 
structure  strong  rather  than  elegant.  Strenu- 
ous objection  to  the  delivery  of  it  was  made 
by  a  number  of  his  badly  frightened  friends. 

Something  like  this  is  true  of  the  slow  prep- 
aration of  his  Cooper  Institute  speech,  and  of 
his  inaugural  addresses.  Conscientious  care 
and  long  forethought  with  reference  to  acts  as 
well  as  to  forms  of  speech  created  in  the  minds 
of  many  observers  an  erroneous  impression  of 
slowness  or  hesitation ;  but  he  could  strike 
with  fiery  rapidity  whenever  an  occasion  called 
for  promptness,  and  it  was  not  by  any  means 
easy  to  take  him  unawares. 

Were  you  ever  at  any  time  suddenly  trans- 
formed into  a  hundred  millions  of  men  and 


138  LINCOLN  AT   WORK 

women  ?  l^o  ?  Well,  I  was  once.  Or,  rather, 
I  was  changed  into  an  actor,  and  was  com- 
pelled to  pose  as  the  living  representative  of  at 
least  that  number  of  people  upon  a  stage  which 
had  no  footlights.  It  was  nothing,  in  fact, 
but  a  chair  at  one  side  of  the  long  "  cabinet- 
meeting  table  "  in  the  President's  room  at  the 
White  House  in  the  summer  of  1863.  Late 
one  evening,  after  all  others  had  left  the  busi- 
ness part  of  the  house,  I  was  in  Mr.  Nicolay's 
room,  for  some  now-forgotten  reason,  when 
Mr.  Lincoln  came  to  the  door  of  it  with  some 
sheets  of  foolscap  paper  in  his  hand. 

"  Stoddard,"  he  said,  "  come  in  here.  I've 
been  writing  something,  and  I  Avant  to  read  it 
to  somebodv." 

He  turned  round  and  went  into  his  own 
room,  going  over  to  the  opposite  side  of  the 
long  table.  Here  he  seated  himself,  pen  in 
hand,  his  manuscript  before  him ;  and  I  was 
dimly  aware  of  an  idea  that  I  was  altogether 
and  merelv  "  somebodv." 

"I  can  always  get  a  better  idea  of  anything," 
he  said,  "after  I've  heard 'it  read  and  know 
how  it  sounds." 

I  began  then  to  get  another  and  very  dif- 
ferent conception  of  my  position.  He  was 
about  to  listen  on  behalf  of  his  audience  of  a 
hundred  million,  and  to  study  the  effect  upon 


UNCLE  SAM'S   WEB-FEET  139 

them,  not  me.  lie  was  intending  to  enter 
into  their  minds,  and  to  weigh  and  judge  with 
them  the  force  and  meaning  of  his  utterances. 
That  is,  Mr.  Lincoln  himself,  by  the  vast  and 
subtle  outreaching  of  his  imagination,  was  for 
the  hour  transformed  into  an  almost  world- 
wide audience,  giving  its  verdict,  sentence  by 
sentence,  upon  a  very  memorable  state  paper. 
It  was  the  long,  yet  wonderfully  condensed, 
letter  addressed  to  whom  it  might  concern, 
through  Hon.  James  C.  Conkling,  of  Spring- 
field, 111.,  August  26,  1863.  In  this  letter  the 
President  summed  up  the  results  of  the  war  to 
that  date,  and  defended  with  caustic  power 
the  policy  of  arming  black  soldiers  for  the  de- 
fence of  their  newly  acquired  freedom.  Be- 
sides this,  it  was  a  defence  of  the  Emancipation 
Proclamation  itself,  then  about  a  year  old,  and 
still  dependent  for  its  full  and  final  effect  upon 
the  outcome  of  the  war.  To  the  minds  of 
many  men,  of  the  IS^orth  as  well  as  of  the  South, 
this  result  was  still  a  matter  of  great  uncer- 
tainty. Half  of  America  and  almost  all  of 
French  or  English-speaking  Europe  believed 
that  the  Confederacy  would  succeed,  after  all, 
in  establishing  an  independent  nationality. 
The  Germanic  peoples  generally  held  an  op- 
posite view,  and  were  free  purchasers  of  our 
national  six-per-cent  bonds.     Even  they,  how- 


140  LINCOLN  AT  WORK 

ever,  were  much  in  need  of  reassurance,  and  it 
was  in  this  manner  to  be  given  them.  The 
discontented,  discouraged,  or  overcritical  citi- 
zens of  Illinois  who  had  addressed  their  com- 
plaints to  the  President  through  Mr.  Conkling 
were  to  serve  an  exceedingly  important  pur- 
pose of  state. 

The  letter  itself  shows,  on  examination,  that 
first  in  importance  of  all  who  were  to  read 
it,  to  the  mind  of  its  author,  were  the  true- 
hearted,  self-sacrificing  people  who  were  sus- 
taining him.  He  knew  that  their  saddened 
eyes  were  in  those  days  continually  turned  to- 
ward him  as  if  they  were  waiting,  longing,  hop- 
ing, that  he  might  have  something  good  to 
tell  them. 

Kot  less  was  the  value  of  that  letter  to  the 
soldiers  in  their  camps  and  the  sailors  on  the 
ships  and  gunboats.  It  was  well  for  the  com- 
mander-in-chief, without  seeming  to  address 
them  at  all,  to  give  them  an  encouraging  out- 
line and  a  better  understanding  of  the  tre- 
mendous work  which  they  had  already  ac- 
complished. 

Just  behind  all  these  was  the  population  of 
the  Confederacy  itself,  or  all  that  part  of  it 
which  should  by  any  means  obtain  a  reading 
of  the  letter.  It  is  now  well  known  that  they 
did,  to' a  large  proportion,  obtain  and  read  not 


UNCLE  SA3I'S    WEB-FEET  141 

only  this,  but '  many  other  of  his  public  and 
private  utterances.  So  deep  was  the  effect 
thus  produced  upon  them  that  at  the  close  of 
the  war  they  were  already  prepared  to  regard 
him  as  their  well-known  friend  and  as  their 
especial  security  for  good  treatment  in  the 
hour  of  their  helplessness. 

After  the  letter  was  printed,  nevertheless, 
one  would  have  supposed  that  its  manner 
rather  than  its  matter  was  of  the  greatest  im- 
portance. The  criticisms  made  upon  it  by 
the  British  journals  which  reprinted  or  did 
not  reprint  it,  in  aa^ioIc  or  in  part,  were  curi- 
ously largely  of  a  literary  character,  as  if  it 
should  have  been  prepared,  or  at  least  modi- 
fied, smoothed,  softened,  to  suit  transatlantic 
tastes  and  prejudices.  Even  these  critics,  how- 
ever, and  others  not  so  far  away,  revealed  in 
their  varied  condemnations  the  fact  that  Mr. 
Lincoln  had  somehoAV  accomplished  his  pur- 
pose, so  far  as  they  were  concerned. 

His  addressed  American  complainers  were 
crushed  out  altogether,  and  it  was  only  nat- 
ural that  a  large  number  of  them  took  refuge 
in  a  high-toned  denunciation  of  his  false 
rhetoric.  "  Read  this,"  they  said  contemp- 
tuously. "  AYhat  are  we  to  think  of  such  utter 
frivolity  in  dealing  with  such  terribly  dark 
and    dreadful    circumstances  ?      Mr.    Lincoln 


142  LINCOLN  AT   WORK 

ought  at  least  to  have  had  the  good  taste  to 
strike  out  this  ridiculous  passage."  The  part 
which  thev  made  the  most  of  read  as  follows : 
"Xor  must  Uncle  Sam's  web-feet  be  forgot- 
ten. At  all  the  watery  margins  they  have 
been  present,  not  only  on  the  deep  sea,  the 
broad  bay,  and  the  rapid  river,  but  also  up  the 
narrow  and  muddv  bavou,  and  wherever  the 
ground  was  a  little  damp,  they  have  been  and 
made  their  tracks." 

Slowlv,  thou o^ht  full V,  listeninor  to  the  sound 
of  his  own  voice,  the  President  read  his  letter 
throuofh  to  the  verv  end,  his  face  chanmno;  its 
expression  in  remarkable  accord  with  the 
spirit  and  force  of  each  successive  paragraph. 
My  own  interest,  and  with  it  my  listening 
power,  grew  intense,  and  I  was  really  some- 
thing more  than  a  theatrical  dummy  ;  for  I, 
too,  was  listening  for  others. 

"  Xow,"  he  said,  as  he  threw  the  last  of  the 
sheets  of  paper  upon  the  table  and  looked 
smilingly  across  at  me,  "  what  do  you  think 
of  it?"" 

As  an  original  anti-slavery  man  and  as  a 
'"  war  Eepublican,"  I  had  only  admiration  and 
-enthusiasm  to  express,  and  I  made  an  effort  to 
express  them ;  but  his  keen  eye  saw  that  I 
had  somethinor  else  on  mv  mind; 

"  Out  with  it  I  "  he  said,     "  If  you  have  any 


UNCLE  SAM'S    WEB-FEET 


143 


criticism  to  make,  make  it ;  I  *d  like  to  know 
what  it  is." 

It  required  much  courage  and  firmness  to 
comply,  but  I  came  up  to  the  mark  bravely. 
"Well,  Mr.  Lincoln,  just  in  one  place.  Where 
YOU  speak  of  Uncle  Sam's  web-feet " 

I 


'What  do  you  thixk  of  it?" 

A  ringing  laugh  interrupted  me.  "  Xot  ex- 
actly the  thing,  eh  ?  I  thought  you  'd  point 
at  that.  I  won't  strike  it  out,  though.  The 
plain  people  will  like  it.  It  *s  just  what  I 
mean  to  sav." 

I  went  back  to  my  own  room,  and  thoufirht 
the  matter  over ;  and  it  was  not  long  before 


144  LINCOLN  AT  WORK 

I  beeran  to  understand  what  be  meant  to  say. 
SomebovT  or  otber,  writing  preciseh"  as  be  did 
write,  be  bad  managed  to  express  a  terrific, 
biting,  withering  scorn  for  all  false  patriotism 
and  its  many  bvpocrisies,  at  tbe  same  time 
wben  be  conveyed  to  otber  minds,  from  bis 
own,  tbe  cbeerfulness  of  a  growing  and  well- 
grounded  trust  tbat  tbe  final  victory  of  tbe 
national  cause  was  already  assured.  In  its 
immediate  effect  tbat  letter  was  like  tbe 
winning  of  a  great  battle,  won  for  tbe  TTnion 
armies  by  tbeir  commander-in-cbief,  sitting 
alone  at  bis  old-fasbioned  writino^-desk  bv  tbe 
southerly  window  of  the  White  House. 


Lincoln':^ 


C OVERT 


OMEBODY  has  asked  the  question, 
"  Did  President  Lincoln  ever  ac- 
tually complain  of  being  tired  phys- 
ically ? "     Somebody   else  has  as- 

t.'  c 

serted  that  he  was  never  seen  to  lie  down  in 
the  daytime.  There  are  not  many  persons  now 
living  who  can  testify  accurately  with  refer- 
ence to  these  very  unimportant  matters  of  per- 
sonal historv.  In  Mr.  Lincoln's  earlier  dav  he 
was  a  remarkable  pedestrian.  He  was  also  a 
good  boxer,  and  was  regarded  as  an  all  but 
unconquerable  wrestler.  It  is  recorded  that 
he  could  lift  over  a  hali-ton  avoirdupois.  A 
man  who  could  split  rails  all  day  and  then  read 
law  all  the  evening  afterward  was  assuredly 
a  phenomenon  of  lx)dily  endurance.  In  his 
many  political  campaigns  his  feats  of  contin- 
uous travelling  and  oratory  have  probably  not 
been  surpassed  by  the  similar  performances  of 
any  other  man. 

It  was  after  he  became  president  of  the 
United  States  that  his  touo^hness  of  both  bodilv 
and  mental  fibre  received  its  severest  testing. 

14o 


146  LINCOLN  AT  WORK 

From  the  hour  of  his  arrival  in  Washington  in 
1861  the  great  burden  of  his  responsibilities, 
not  to  be  estimated  by  ton  weights,  rested 
upon  his  heart  and  brain  rather  than  upon  his 
corporeal  shoulders.  It  was  of  this  load  that 
he  spoke  to  a  friend  w^hen  he  complained  that 
it  was  slowly  killing  him.  He  was  dying  by 
inches  internally,  while  his  sinews  were  as  good 
as  ever. 

The  continually  arriving  swarms  of  office- 
seekers  were  very  little  more  than  so  many 
flies,  some  of  them  gadflies,  to  be  endured 
philosophically  and  brushed  away.  They  were 
time- wasters.  His  habits  of  all  sorts  were  as 
regular  as  clockwork.  The  mere  routine  duties 
of  the  executive  office  began  for  him  as  soon 
as  he  was  out  of  bed.  He  was  often  at  work 
at  his  desk  before  breakfast.  It  may  also  be 
said  that  his  toils  continued,  with  but  little  in- 
terruption or  relaxation,  until  he  went  to  bed 
again ;  and  this  was  often  at  a  late  hour. 
Moreover,  there  may  have  been,  before  any 
great  battle  or  after  a  great  defeat,  a  night  of 
sleeplessness  when  brain  and  heart  worked  on 
and  when  the  body  itself  was  unable  to  rest 
very  well. 

As  to  his  ever  lying  down  in  tlie  daytime,  I 
can  distinctly  remember  a  case  in  point.  There 
was  one  particular  occasion  when  Mr.  Lincoln 


LINCOLN'S  GREAT  DISCOVERY  147 

did  lie  down  and  in  the  forenoon.  That  he  did 
so  may  have  been  in  part  because  he  was  tired 
and  the  day  was  warm,  but  it  was  much  more 
for  an  altogetlier  different  reason. 

In  the  spring  of  1804  a  man  by  the  name  of 
Grant,  already  distinguished  for  remarkable 
efficiency  in  the  West,  was  appointed  to  the 
command  of  all  the  land  forces  of  the  United 
States.  Up  to  the  date  of  his  appointment  he 
and  Mr.  Lincoln  had  not  met,  and  their  per- 
sonal acquaintanceship  began  under  somewhat 
difficult  circumstances.  It  is  true  that  they 
had  corresponded  by  mail  and  telegraph,  but 
each  was  as  yet  a  good  deal  of  a  stranger  to 
the  other. 

At  the  time  of  General  Grant's  arrival  in 
"Washington,  to  assume  especially  the  direction 
of  the  Army  of  the  Potomac,  I  was  in  bed 
with  the  typhoid  fever.  Weeks  passed  before 
I  was  able  to  return  to  my  desk  at  the  White 
House.  When  at  last  mv  convalescence  reached 
the  stage  for  walking  about,  I  chose  a  Sunday 
morning  for  my  first  visit,  not  caring  to  en- 
counter the  work-day  throngs  of  all  sorts.  My 
latch-key  let  me  into  the  house,  and  I  walked 
around  the  lower  floor,  from  room  to  room, 
without  meeting  anybody  in  particular.  Then 
I  climbed  the  stairs,  and  went  to  my  own,  the 
northeast   room.     I    found    my  table   heaped 


148  LINCOLN  AT   WORK 

with  accumulated  papers,  which  promised  su- 
perabundance of  work  for  me  as  soon  as  I 
should  be  able  to  get  at  it ;  and  I  was  glad  to 
turn  away.  Across  the  hall  was  Mr.  Xicolay's 
room,  but  neither  he  nor  Colonel  Hay  was 
there. 

The  hall  door  of  the  President's  room  was 
open,  and  I  sauntered  over  toward  it.  I  can 
remember  that  I  was  feeling  blue  and  out  of 
sorts,  besides  being  nervously  anxious  about 
the  political  and  military  situation.  I  looked 
in  ;  and  there  was  Mr.  Lincoln  stretched  out  at 
full  length  upon  the  sofa,  his  hands  folded  over 
the  top  of  his  head.  Two  cushions  lifted  his 
shoulders,  and  assisted  in  giving  him  a  com- 
fortable, lounging  position.  There  was  a  broad 
smile  upon  his  face  like  contentment,  and  he 
only  raised  his  head  a  little  to  speak  to  me,  bid- 
ding me  come  in.  I  went  and  brought  a  chair 
to  the  sofa  so  that  I  could  sit  down  facing  him. 
Very  kind,  very  encouraging  were  his  inquiries 
about  my  illness  and  his  advice  concernina^ 
needful  prudence.  He  had  also  instructions 
to  give,  and  there  were  varied  topics  for  con- 
versation ;  but  I  had  a  special  inquiry  in  my 
mind,  and  I  engineered  an  opportunity  for 
making  it. 

"  Now,  Mr.  Lincoln,"  I  said,  "  what  sort  of 
a  man  is  Grant  ?     I  've  never  seen  him.     He 


LINCOLN'S  GREAT  DISCOVERY  14^ 

has  taken  hold  here  while  I  have  been  laid  up. 
What  do  you  think  of  him  ?  " 

Up  came  the  President,  turning  over  and 
leaning  upon  an  elbow  ;  and  he  laughed  one  of 
his  long,  peculiar,  silent  laughs  before  he  re- 
plied :  "  Well,  Stoddard,  I  hardly  know  what 
to  think  of  him  altogether,  lie 's  the  quietest 
little  fellow  I  ever  saw." 

"  How  is  tliat  ?  "  I  persisted. 

"  Why,  he  makes  the  least  fuss  of  any  man 
you  ever  knew.  I  believe  two  or  three  times 
he  has  been  in  this  room  a  minute  or  so  before 
I  knew  he  was  here.  It 's  about  so  all  around. 
The  onl}^  evidence  you  have  that  he 's  in  any 
place  is  that  he  makes  things  git  I  Wherever 
he  is,  things  move  !  " 

He  was  growing  very  much  in  earnest,  and 
there  was  something  like  a  glow  upon  his  sal- 
low, deeply  marked  countenance.  There  were 
several  other  remarks  made,  or  questions  and 
answers,  which  I  cannot  now  recall ;  but  my 
main  point  was  reached  at  last. 

"  But  how  about  Grant's  generalship  ? "  I 
ventured  to  inquire.  ^'  Is  he  going  to  be  tlie 
man  ?" 

As  all  are  aware,  that  tremendous  question 
had  been  asked  by  the  President  and  by  the 
nation  of  several  successive  commanders,  and 
the  responses  had  not  been  altogether  satisfac- 


150 


LINCOLN  AT  WORK 


tory.  Mr.  Lincoln  was  now  half  sitting  up, 
and  he  emphasized  his  reply  with  his  long  up- 
lifted forefinger. 

*'  Stoddard,  Grant  is  the  first  general  I  've 
had.     He 's  a  general ! " 


"Grant  is  the  first  general  I've  had." 

^'  How  do  vou  mean,  Mr.  Lincoln  ?  " 
"  Well,  I  '11  tell  you  what  I  mean.  You  know 
how  it 's  been  with  all  the  rest.  As  soon  as  I 
put  a  man  in  command  of  the  army,  he  'd  come 
to  me  with  a  plan  of  a  campaign,  and  about  as 
much  as  say, '  J^ow,  I  don't  believe  I  can  do  it ; 
but,  if  you  say  so,  I'll  try  it  on,'  and  so  put  the 


LINCOLN'S  GREAT  DISCOVERY  151 

responsibility  of  success  or  failure  upon  me. 
They  all  wanted  me  to  be  the  general.  Now, 
it  is  n't  so  with  Grant.  He  has  n't  told  me  what 
his  plans  are.  I  don't  know,  and  I  don't  want 
to  know.  I  'm  glad  to  find  a  man  that  can  go 
ahead  without  me." 

I  wanted  to  hear  as  much  more  as  I  could, 
and  what  I  said  next  I  don't  know,  but  it  net- 
tled him.  It  made  him  sit  up  on  the  sofa  and 
talk  right  at  me. 

"  You  see,  Stoddard,  when  any  of  the  rest 
set  out  on  a  campaign,  they  'd  look  over  matters 
and  pick  out  some  one  thing  they  were  short 
of,  and  they  knew  I  could  n't  give  'em,  and  tell 
me  they  could  n't  hope  to  win  unless  they  had 
it ;  and  it  was  most  generally  cavalry." 

Perhaps  it  was  an  absurd  memory  connected 
with  past  impossible  army  requisitions  that 
made  him  pause  and  laugh  so  heartily,  and  he 
went  on  :  "  Wow,  when  Grant  took  hold,  I 
was  waiting  to  see  what  his  pet  impossibility 
would  be ;  and  I  reckoned  it  would  be  cavalry, 
as  a  matter  of  course,  for  we  hadn't  horses 
enough  to  mount  even  what  men  we  had. 
There  were  fifteen  thousand,  or  thereabouts, 
up  at  Harper's  Ferry,  and  no  horses  to  put 
them  on.  Well,  the  other  day  Grant  sends  to 
me  about  those  very  men,  just  as  I  expected ; 
but  what  he  wanted  to  know  was  whether  he 


152  LINCOLN  AT   WORK 

should  make  infantry  of  'em,  or  disband  'em. 
He  did  n't  ask  impossibilities  of  me,  and  he 's 
the  first  general  I  've  had  that  did  n't." 

It  was  plain  enough,  therefore,  why  he  was 
lying  down  so  cheerfully  that  sunny  Sunday 
morning.  Xo  doubt  he  was  tired,  internally, 
perhaps  externally ;  but  there  was  not  any  look 
of  weariness  upon  his  face.  He  would  have 
been  ready  for  and  equal  to  any  amount  of 
mere  bodily  exertion.  It  was  a  sense  of  relief 
which  had  put  him  on  the  sofa.  Somebody 
else  was  playing  the  part  of  Atlas  for  him,  at 
last.  He  had  discovered  another  pair  of 
shoulders  as  strong  as  his  own,  and  he  believed 
that  for  military  burdens  they  were  stronger. 
He  was  not  the  only  man  who  has  found  all 
his  muscles  and  nerves  relax  under  the  grate- 
ful breath  of  deliverance. 

Long  years  afterward  the  substance  of  this 
conversation  was  repeated  to  Grant  himself. 
It  was  after  the  close  of  his  second  presidential 
term.  Already  the  question  of  Lincoln's  in- 
terference with  army  management  had  been 
the  subject  of  extended  and  acrimonious  dis- 
cussion. The  general's  commentary  upon  Mr. 
Lincoln's  somewhat  humorous  declaration  cov- 
ering his  own  case  as  well  as  the  careers  of  his 
less  successful  predecessors  was  exceedingly 
emphatic.     ISTever,  he  said,  at  any  time  had  the 


LINCOLN'S  GREAT  DISCOVERY  153 

President    interfered  Avitli    him.     Always  be 
had  given  unstinted,  unquestioning  support. 

The  Sunday  morning  nap  of  the  tired  chief 
magistrate  and  commander-in-chief  was  there- 
fore a  curious  result  and  index  of  a  great  and 
welcome  change  which  had  come.  He  had 
discovered  a  genuinely  great  general. 


hSXANTON 


OW !  I  want  to  hear  it  all.  Tell 
it  as  rapidly  as  you  can.  Where 
did  you  go,  and  what  did  you 
learn  ? " 

There  was  no  other  person  in  the  President's 
office  at  the  AYhite  House.  He  was  sitting  in 
a  chair  near  the  sofa,  with  a  great  upright  rack 
of  roller  war-maps  behind  him.  He  had 
pointed  me  to  a  chair  in  front  of  him,  and  I  sat 
down  to  make  my  report  of  aifairs  in  the 
Southwest.  The  hall  outside  was  crowded 
with  people  of  all  sorts  and  ranks,  impatiently 
awaiting  their  turns  to  come  in ;  and  they 
seemed  to  give  a  kind  of  emphasis  to  his 
demand  for  conciseness.  Nevertheless,  I  had 
something  -to  tell  that  he  was  determined  to 
hear  before  he  would  attend  to  anybody  else. 

"  I  went  straight  from  here  to  St.  Louis,"  I 
replied.  "Then  down  the  Mississippi  to  Mem- 
phis. From  there  I  went  up  the  White  Eiver 
to  Duval's  Bluff,  and  across  country  to  Little 
Rock.  I  finished  there,  and  went  down  the 
Arkansas  River  and  up  the  Mississippi  again. 

154 


TAKE  THAT  TO  STANTON  155 

I  went  everywhere  and  talked  with  everybody, 
army  men  and  civilians." 

"  First,  then,  how  about  General  Washburn 
and  Memphis  and  West  Tennessee.  Is  he  all 
right  ?  " 

"  Things  there  are  all  you  could  ask  for,  as 
to  administration ;  "  and  I  was  glad — for  I  liked 
Washburn — to  be  able  to  give  a  thoroughly 
good  report  of  that  important  post  and  district, 
without  any  flaws  or  faultfinding.  The  Presi- 
dent also  expressed  great  satisfaction,  for  evil 
tongues  had  been  busy. 

"  Now  for  Arkansas,"  said  he.  "  How 
about  the  charges  against  General  Steele  ?  " 

His  face  had  put  on  an  unusually  dark  and 
anxious  look,  and  he  was  silently  tapping  the 
floor  with  one  foot. 

"  They  are  all  nonsense  !  "  I  said  with  some 
energy.  "  There  is  n't  a  dishonest  hair  in  his 
head.  He  can't  be  held  responsible,  though, 
for  all  that 's  going  on  in  his  department." 

"  Of  course  not,"  said  Mr.  Lincoln,  "  but 
what  is  the  real  truth  about  the  corn-contract 
frauds  ?  " 

"  I  guess  I  '11  have  to  tell  you  just  how  that 
is,  Mr.  Lincoln.  The  contractors  did  make  a 
great  deal  of  money,  but  the  government 
didn't  lose  any." 

"  I  don't  see  how  that  can  be,"  he  interrupted 


156  LINCOLN  AT  WORK 

me,  his  face  clouding  more  angrily.  "  I  'm  glad 
about  Fred  Steele,  though.  I  always  liked 
him.  I  like  his  brother,  too,  that 's  here  in 
Congress.  Finish  your  story  about  that  corn. 
How  was  it  ?  " 

"Well,"  I  responded,  "the  way  of  it  was 
this :  Just  before  we  marched  in  the  planters 
of  the  Arkansas  Eiver  bottom-lands  didn't 
care  to  put  in  any  cotton.  They  had  no  mar- 
ket for  it,  you  know.  The  Confederate  army 
and  other  folks  were  sure  to  need  corn,  though  ; 
and  so  all  that  tremendous  stretch  of  country, 
best  land  in  the  world,  was  planted  in  corn. 
The  crops  came  up  fine.  Sixty  to  a  hundred 
bushels  the  acre,  maybe.  Then  our  troops 
came  in,  and  the  Confederate  army  marched 
away.  So  did  most  of  the  planters ;  and  the 
colored  people  took  to  their  heels,  every  which 
way.  There  was  the  corn,  and  nobody  to 
gather  it.  It  wasn't  the  property  of  the 
Confederate  government,  so  far  as  anybody 
knew ;  and  there  was  a  great  deal  more  of  it 
than  General  Steele's  army  needed.  So  the 
contractors  came  in  to  prevent  all  those  mag- 
nificent crops  from  being  wasted.  It  pained 
them  to  think  of  so  much  good  corn  rotting  in 
the  field.  They  had  all  the  contracts  for  sup- 
plying the  Army  of  the  Cumberland,  the 
Army  of  the  Tennessee,  and  as  far  down  as 


TAKE   THAT  TO  STANTON  157 

'New   Orleans.      They   were  to    be    paid,   of 

course,  at  Illinois  and  Indiana  prices ;  and  the 

contract  figures  were  pretty  good  ones.     They 

ran    their    own    steamers    up    the   Arkansas 

Iliver  from  landing  to  landing,  and  at  every 

tie-up  place  they  found  trains  of  six-mule-team 

wagons  heaped  Avith  splendid  corn,  just  what 

our  army  needed.     IIow  the   quartermasters 

came  to  be  so  kind  as  to  land  the  wagons  and 

teams  I  can't  say,  for  I  could  n't  prove  it ;  but 

every  ear  of  that  corn  was  husked  by  a  Union 

soldier,  black  or  white,  on  leave  of  temporary 

absence,  or  detailed  for  special  service,  at  a 

dollar    a    day.       The    contractors    got    the 

corn." 

''  And  the  boys  got  the  money  ?  " 

"  They  told  me  they  did,  cash  down,  at  the 
end  of  the  day ;  and  they  enjoyed  the  work ; 
and  it  made  them  feel  like  being  at  home 
again,  you  know." 

The  President  leaned  back  in  his  chair  and 
laughed  merrily,  and  then  he  studied  hard  for 
a  moment. 

"'  That 's  all  about  that,"  he  exclaimed. 
"  The  government  Avas  n't  really  robbed,  after 
all.  I  '11  see  about  it.  We  've  more  important 
matters  on  hand  just  noAv.  What  I  Avant  to 
hear  you  tell  is,  hoAv  about  the  reports  of 
cruelty  to   prisoners   of   Avar   by  any  of   our 


158 


LINCOLN  AT  WORK 


commanders  down  yonder  ?     Tell  me  exactly 
what  you  found  out  about  that." 

"  There  is  n't  any  truth  in  those  accusations, 
Mr.  Lincoln.  Not  one  word,  from  first  to 
last." 


"Every  ear  was  husked  by  a  Union  soldier." 


"  As  to  the  guerrillas,  I  mean." 

"  Even  as  to  them  our  generals  and  post 
commanders  are  entirely  innocent.  They 
have   been   exceedingly  lenient.     There   is  a 


TAKE  THAT  TO  STANTON  159 

kind  of  story,  there,  though.  I  got  it  first 
from  some  Arkansas  people,  and  then,  a  little 
straighter,  from  a  cavalry  sergeant  while  I 
was  riding  across  from  the  White  Eiver  to  the 
Arkansas.  He  was  in  command  of  the  escort 
they  gave  me.  I  saw  what  regiment  he  be- 
longed to,  and  I  asked  him  :  ^  Sergeant,  what 
did  you  and  your  boys  do  with  the  squad  of 
Sash  Watkin's  guerrillas  that  you  took  week 
before  last  ?  Did  you  let  'em  go,  or  did  they 
get  away  ? '  He  looked  me  in  the  eye  for  a 
moment,  and  then  he  laughed  and  said  :  '  Colo- 
nel, if  you  was  under  Steele  here,  I'd  never 
tell  you  ;  but,  seein'  it's  you,  I  just  will.  Do 
you  see  that  neck  o'  woods  away  yonder, 
south?  That's  where  we  took  'em.  They 
were  the  worst  kind,  you  know.  Cutthroats, 
everv  man  of  'em.  There  was  thirteen  of  'em.' 
There  he  held  in,  and  I  asked  him  again, 
'  Well,  did  they  get  away,  or  did  you  let  'em 
go  ? '  '  Colonel,'  he  said,  '  I  did  n't  reckon  you 
knew  about  that.  Anyhow !  So !  We  had 
plenty  o'  rope,  and  so  we  let  'em  go.' " 

"  I  don't  quite  get  it,"  interposed  Mr.  Lin- 
coln.    "  How  is  it  ?  " 

"  The  trouble  was,"  I  went  on,  "  that  these 
robbers  were  ruining  the  country.  They  were 
torturing,  murdering,  burning  houses,  destroy- 
ing everything.     General  Dick  Taylor,  on  the 


160  LINCOLN  AT    WORK 

Confederate  side,  made  a  kind  of  tacit  agree- 
ment Avith  General  Steele  that  all  guerrillas 
were  to  be  shot  on  sight,  and  Taylor's  men 
lived  up  to  it  pretty  well,  to  protect  their  own 
people.  Our  boys  at  first  would  only  bring 
'em  in  and  report  'em,  and  after  that  they 
were  treated  mostly  as  prisoners  of  war,  or 
discharged  as  civilians  not  liable  to  be  held  or 
exchanged.  You  see,  that  sent  them  back 
again  to  their  old  work  worse  than  ever. 
Then  our  boys  got  their  blood  up,  and  they 
did  n't  take  the  trouble  to  brino-  in  anv  more 
guerrillas.  The  point  of  it  is,  Mr.  Lincoln, 
that,  if  a  captured  guerrilla  was  marched  out 
of  a  camp,  and  given  a  start  of  say  fifty  yards, 
and  told  to  run  his  best,  and  if  good  shots  be- 
gan to  practise  on  him  at  a  fifty  yards'  range, 
why,  then,  if  they  did  n't  hit  him,  he  got  away, 
and  the  boys  could  report  it,  if  they  cared  to 
mention  it  at  all.  Now,  if  he  was  a  very  bad 
case  indeed,  and  if  he  was  given  a  mule  to 
ride  home  on,  and  if  a  rope  from  a  tree  over- 
head had  a  loop  at  the  end  of  it  that  was  slip- 
knotted  around  his  neck,  a  cut  of  a  whip  would 
start  that  mule  on  a  run.  There  was  no  need 
then  for  making  any  report  of  that  cutthroat. 
They  had  let  him  go," 

The  President  was  silent,  and  his  face  was 
darkly  cloudy.     He  even  shut  his  eyes  and  sat 


TAKE   THAT  TO  STAKTON  161 

very  still  for  a  moment.  Then  he  picked  up  a 
card  and  wrote  something  on  it. 

"  Stoddard,"  he  said  as  lie  wrote,  "  go  and 
make  your  report  to  Stanton  at  once,  just  as 
you  've  made  it  to  me.  All  of  those  papers 
[naming  them]  can  be  quashed  at  once,  and 
I  'm  very  glad  of  it.  But  Stanton  must  know 
right  off"." 

"  He  's  so  crowded  over  there,"  I  said,  "  I 
don't  know  that  he  '11  see  me." 

"  Hand  in  that,"  he  replied,  giving  me  the 
card.     "  He  must  see  you  instantly." 

There  Avere  various  matters  in  my  report 
concerning  affairs  in  the  Southwest  in  which 
the  secretar}^  of  war  might  be  supposed  to  be 
interested,  and  I  hurried  over  to  the  war  office. 
It  was  in  the  second  story  of  the  old  brick 
building  west  of  the  White  House.  The  hall- 
way leading  to  the  rooms  occupied  by  the  sec- 
retary Avas  almost  densely  thronged  with  army 
officers  of  all  grades,  from  major-general  down, 
with  Senators,  Congressmen,  and  other  bril- 
liant civilians  also.  I  once  more  doubted  my 
chances  for  seeing  the  somewhat  brusque  war 
minister  that  day ;  but  Mr.  Lincoln's  card 
went  in,  and  I  did  not  have  to  wait  a  minute. 
His  own  room,  with  its  corps  of  clerks  and 
aides,  had  no  privacy,  and  he  led  me  out  of  it 
to  a  little  coop  of  a  waiting-room  at  the  end 


162  LINCOLN  AT  WORK 

of  the  hall,  with  no  furniture  in  it  but  a  divan 
sofa  before  the  window.  On  this  we  sat 
down,  and  he  cross-questioned  me  thoroughly. 
He  seemed  as  pleased  as  the  President  had 
been  at  my  exonerations  of  prominent  army 
officers. 

He  was  saying  as  much  emphatically,  when 
one  of  his  clerks  came  excitedly  in,  and  handed 
him  several  wide  slips  of  the  thin  yellow  paper 
on  which  telegraphic  despatches  from  the 
army  were  generally  duplicated.  Mr.  Stanton 
took  and  read,  and  at  once  handed  a  set  of  the 
slips  to  me.  "  Eead  that,  Mr.  Secretary  !  "  he 
shouted.  "Eead  that!  Take  it  to  his  Ex- 
cellency !  Fast  as  you  can  go !  It's  the  turn- 
ing-point of  the  war !  Hurrah !  ^o  more 
work  in  this  office  to-day  ! " 

Out  he  dashed  into  the  hall,  and  he  was  ac- 
tually jumping  up  and  down  while  he  roared 
into  that  jam  of  patriotic  celebrities  the  first 
complete  news  of  Sheridan's  great  victory  in 
the  valley  of  Virginia,  over  General  Early. 
Away  I  went  to  the  Executive  Mansion.  On 
the  way  I  met  others,  to  whom  I  shouted  my 
tidings ;  but  I  did  not  delay  a  moment  in 
reaching  Mr.  Lincoln's  room,  a  kind  of  small 
procession  rushing  in  with  me.  The  rush 
grew  fast  as  I  handed  Mr.  Lincoln  the  de- 
spatches and  told  him  not  only  w^hat  was  in 


TAKE  THAT  TO  STANTON 


163 


them,  but  also  the  very  remarkable  effect  they 
had  produced  upon  the  secretary  of  war. 

"  I  think  so,  I  think  so,"  he  remarked  as  ho 
read;   "I   guess   Ave'il  shut   up  shop,  too.     I 


"Read  that 


) " 


don't  know  that  I  care  to  do  any  more  work 
to-day." 

None  of  the  rest  of  us  did,  at  all  events,  and 
the  White  House,  like  the  war  office,  obtained 
almost  a  half-holiday  in  which  to  celebrate 
Phil  Sheridan's  famous  "  turning-point  of  the 


war. 


j> 


T"^  VOICE  ^fk^^  #■'  ■'"'  SOUTH 


|NCE  there  came  a  great  and  sudden 
change  to  all  the  people  of  the 
^^i3^^^  United  States  Korth  and  South, 
bo  great  and  unexpected  a  calam- 
ity fell  upon  them  that  everywhere  all  men 
and  women  stood  still  and  looked  into  one  an- 
other's faces,  inquiring :  "  What  shall  we  do 
now  ?     How  shall  we  go  on  without  Lincoln  ?  " 

The  most  tremendous  chapter  in  the  later 
history  of  the  republic  was  ended ;  but  the 
book  was  not  closed,  and  what  might  next  be 
written  was  apparently  beyond  all  human  cal- 
culation. 

Just  before  this  change  the  days  had  been 
full  of  uproarious  rejoicing  over  the  return  of 
peace.  It  had  been  thankfully  believed  that 
order  and  prosperity  would  speedily  return, 
after  the  lonof  confusion  and  miserv  of  the 
Civil  War,  under  the  guidance  of  the  strong 
hand  and  steady  brain  which  all  the  world  had 
learned  to  trust  so  well. 

Lincoln  was  dead,  and  with  him  had  passed 
away  the  assured  and  settled  policy  which  he 

164 


THE   VOICE  OF  THE  SOUTH  165 

embodied.  The  terrible  tidings  went  out  over 
the  wires  to  all  corners  of  the  country,  and  it 
flashed  out  under  the  sea  to  all  the  inhabited 
earth.  In  all  harbors  the  flags  of  the  ships 
came  down  to  half-mast,  and  on  the  flagstaff's 
of  all  forts  and  camps,  while  the  solemn  thun- 
ders of  the  minute-guns  sounded  the  requiem 
of  the  murdered  President  of  the  United 
States. 

After  that  there  were  days  of  an  almost  na- 
tional pals}^,  and  recovery  from  it  hardly  came 
until  after  the  passage  from  the  East  to  the 
West  of  the  most  remarkable  funeral  proces- 
sion that  the  earth  has  ever  witnessed. 

There  have  been  numberless  word-pictures 
of  the  manner  in  which  the  tidings  of  Abra- 
ham Lincoln's  assassination  were  received  in 
many  cities  and  towns  of  this  and  other  coun- 
tries, and  these  assist  greatly  in  obtaining  a 
correct  impression  of  the  position  which  he 
occupied  in  the  hearts  and  minds  of  those  who 
would  naturally  be  expected  to  honor  him. 

Somewhat  less  complete  is  the  general  under- 
standing of  the  efl'ect  produced  by  the  sad 
event  upon  the  people  of  the  vanquished  Con- 
federacy and  upon  some  other  of  our  varied 
national  elements  as  they  then  existed.  It  is 
true,  however,  that  Mr.  Lincoln  had  become 
wonderfully  well  understood  by  the  people  of 


166  LINCOLN  AT  WORK 

the  Southern  States,  in  spite  of  all  that  had 
been  said  against  him. 

Our  telegraphic  system  was  then  not  at  all 
what  it  is  now.  For  instance,  there  was  vet  a 
great  break  in  its  lines  at  the  mouth  of  the 
Ohio  Elver  at  Cairo.  The  wires  began  again, 
in  one  direction,  at  Duval's  Bluff,  on  the  White 
River,  in  Arkansas.  Between  this  point  and 
Cairo,  and  between  Duval's  Bluff  and  Memphis, 
Tenn.,  a  nearer  point,  all  communication  was 
by  steamboat.  There  was  therefore  a  delay 
of  many  hours  in  the  arrival  of  the  dread  news 
at  the  headquarters  of  the  Seventh  Army  Corps 
at  Little  Eock,  Ark.  The  Southwest  had  been 
even  more  bitterly  secession  in  feeling  and  de- 
termination than  any  of  the  Middle  or  Atlantic 
Southern  States.  There  were  yet  armed  forces 
in  the  field,  refusing  to  disband  or  surrender ; 
and  the  people  generally  were  outspokenly 
fierce  with  all  the  burning  animosity  of  de- 
feat. 

The  dawn  Avas  barely  showing  on  the  morn- 
ing of  the  second  day  after  the  assassination. 
The  sky  was  clear,  promising  one  of  the  warm, 
bright  days  of  the  Southern  spring.  At  a  lit- 
tle distance  back  from  the  southerly  bank  of 
the  Arkansas  River,  and  near  the  middle  of 
the  town,  stood  the  old-fashioned,  worn-out- 
looking  State  House,  surrounded  by  leafless 


TEE   VOICE  OF  THE  SOUTH  167 

trees.  In  one  wing  of  this  building,  on  the 
lower  floor,  was  the  office  of  the  United  States 
marshal.  It  w^as  also  my  sleeping-room  at  the 
time,  and  at  night  contained  two  narrow  camp 
beds,  for  my  brother  was  with  me,  an  officer 
in  the  Seventh.  The  sun  had  not  yet  risen 
when  I  suddenly  found  myself  sitting  up  in 
bed  and  listening. 

*'  Harry  !  "  I  exclaimed.  "  Hark  !  Do  you 
hear  that  ?  It 's  a  heavy  gun  from  one  of  the 
forts.     What  can  that  mean  ?  " 

"  The  Confederates  ?  "  he  said.  "  It  can't 
be  that  they  are  attacking.     Preposterous." 

"  Listen !  Count !  There  it  comes  again. 
That 's  a  minute-gun  !  Get  up,  Harry  !  Secre- 
tary Seward  is  dead." 

The  meaning  of  that  was  that  the  illness  of 
the  great  New  York  statesman  had  been  re- 
ported as  possibly  fatal,  and  my  brother  and  I 
had  been  brought  up  as  his  strong  personal 
admirers.  We  began  at  once  to  recall  our 
pleasant  memories  of  his  kindnesses  to  us, 
and  to  sympathize  with  his  family.  Hardly, 
however,  were  we  upon  our  feet  before  there 
came  an  excited  hammering  at  the  door.  I 
went  to  open  it,  and  an  officer  thrust  in  his 
bare  head  to  exclaim  huskily,  "  Colonel,  Presi- 
dent Lincoln  has  been  assassinated !  Don't 
you  hear  the  guns  ?     The  news  just  came  I  " 


168  LINCOLN  AT  WORK 

Away  he  went,  and  we  stood  still  for  a 
moment,  as  if  stunned. 

"We  must  put  on  our  black  suits,  Harry. 
Only  black,  from  head  to  foot." 

So  Ave  did,  but  the  nearest  thing  to  mourn- 
ing goods  that  we  could  muster  was  our  dinner 
dress  suits.  We  put  them  on  in  haste,  yet 
slowly ;  and  then  we  walked  out  through  the 
State  House  grounds  to  what  Avas  then  the 
main  street.  Hardly  had  we  reached  it  when 
we  saw  a  large,  portly  man  coming  up  the 
avenue.  In  one  hand  he  carried  a  long,  heav}^, 
naked  bowie-knife;  in  the  other  hand  a  red 
sillv  handkerchief,  with  which  he  now  and  then 
wiped  his  face. 

"  Lincoln  is  dead !  Lincoln  is  dead !  D — n ! " 
— for  this  man  was  weeping  bitterly  and  swear- 
ing, pouring  forth  angry  curses  upon  the  wretcii 
who  'had  slain  the  good  President.  He  had 
been  a  Confederate  Army  officer,  and  also  a 
civil  court  official  under  the  general  Confeder- 
ate government.  He  did  not  look  at  us  or 
speak  to  us,  and  w^e  walked  on.  He  was  in 
many  respects  a  representative  man,  belonging 
to  the  educated  higher  class  of  the  Southwest. 

Kot  man}^  yards  beyond  him  we  met  a  short, 
gnarled,  rugged  sort  of  man  who  had  been  a 
native  Arkansas  Unionist.  He  was  of  unusual 
intelligence,  and  had  recently  been  elected  to 


THE    VOICE  OF  THE  SOUTH 


169 


Congress  by  one  of  the  Mississippi  Kiver 
districts.  lie,  too,  was  crying  like  a  child  as 
he  walked  along,  talking  to  himself  about  this 


f 


nji 


u 


Lincoln  is  dead!    Lincoln  is  dead!" 


disaster  to  the  South ;  and  he  was  all  the 
wliile  swearing  fiercely,  as  one  who  did  not 
know  or  care  what  he  Avas  saying.  Not  a 
Avord  did  he  speak  to  either  of  us,  although  he 


170  LINCOLN  AT   WORK 

knew  us  well ;  and  we  passed  on  as  two  men 
who  were  dreaming. 

Wandering  near  a  line  of  shanties  that  were 
occupied  by  colored  people,  we  saw  a  number 
of  men  and  women,  half-clad,  hurrying  out  to 
fasten  rude  strips  of  black  stuff  at  their 
humble  doorways.  All  of  these  were  mourn- 
ing loudly,  as  if  they  had  lost  their  father. 

More  and  more  did  it  seem  like  some  im- 
probable dream,  but  only  a  few  minutes  later 
I  had  to  spring  forward  and  restrain  some 
Union  soldiers  who  were  dashing  furiously 
along  with  their  knives  out,  in  hot  pursuit  of  a 
fugitive  who  was  barely  rescued  from  them. 
"  Why,  Colonel,"  they  told  me,  "  we  ought  to 
kill  him !  When  he  heard  of  Lincoln's  murder, 
he  said  it  was  good  enough  for  him  !  " 

They  obeyed  me,  nevertheless,  even  while 
they  still  angrily  asserted  that  such  fellows 
ought  to  be  shot  or  hanged.  I  can  now  re- 
member distinctly  the  bewildered,  puzzled  ex- 
pression on  the  war-bronzed  faces  of  those 
men. 

The  next  squad  of  soldiers  that  we  saw  came 
running  to  me  with  a  vociferous  complaint. 

"  Colonel !  "  they  shouted.  "  Old  Bernays 
is  opening  his  liquor  store !  We  told  him  not 
to!" 

I  had  ordinarily  only  a  doubtful  authority  in 


THE   VOICE  OF  THE  SOUTH  171 

any  such  direction,  but  tliis  was  an  unusual 
case. 

"  Go  back  !  "  I  replied.  "  Tell  him  to  shut 
up  at  once.  The  provost  marshal's  men  will 
close  every  store  in  Little  Rock  as  fast  as  it 's 
opened.  Tell  him  he  must  n't  think  of  selling 
any  liquor  to-day," 

With  shouts  of  gratification  the  brave  fel- 
loAVS  ran  back  to  deal  with  the  unfeeling  con- 
duct of  "  old  Bernays." 

Orders  from  the  military  authorities  went 
out  rapidly,  that  the  peace  might  be  preserved 
during  such  a  time  of  excitement,  but  the 
next  development  came  as  a  complete  sur- 
prise. 

Before  and  even  during  the  Civil  War, 
Little  Rock  had  been  a  notable  headquarters 
of  the  Masonic  fraternity.  They  had  there  a 
college  building  of  their  own.  IS'ot  only  were 
they  numerous  and  zealous,  but  they  included 
a  large  majority  of  the  best  citizens  of  the 
town  and  the  wealthiest  of  the  neighboring 
planters. 

They  were  therefore  peculiarly  an  influen- 
tial and  representative  body  of  men.  Any 
action  taken  by  them  might  without  question 
be  regarded  as  expressing  vastly  more  than 
merely  local  thought  or  feeling. 

I  had  finished  my  breakfast,  and  had  con- 


172  LINCOLN  AT   WORK 

versed  with  a  number  of  Union  officers  at  the 
hotel  and  at  tlie  headquarters  of  General 
Keynolds,  commanding  the  department.  I 
had  also  been  at  the  United  States  District 
Courtroom,  drafting  the  necessary  memorial, 
by  order  of  the  district  judge,  to  be  entered 
upon  the  court  records.  I  was  coming  out  of 
the  State  House  when  I  was  confronted  by  a 
committee  sent  by  the  "Confederate  Ma- 
sons," as  thev  were  sometimes  called.  Their 
errand  was  to  inform  me  that  a  "  lodoe  of  sor- 
row"  was  to  be  held  at  noon  that  day  at  their 
hall,  and  that  they  wished  me  to  come  and 
deliver  a  funeral  address. upon  Abraham  Lin- 
coln. In  his  death,  they  sadly  declared,  they 
believed  the  people  of  the  South  had  received 
their  last  and  most  disastrous  blow.  They  had 
now  lost  the  one  true  friend  upon  whom  they 
had  relied  for  sure  protection  in  the  dark 
future  which  was  opened  before  them  by  the 
result  of  the  war. 

There  could  be  no  refusal  of  such  a  request, 
and  I  went  with  them  to  a  3"et  more  complete 
surprise.  The  hall  was  croAvded  with  sombre- 
faced  men,  a  large  part  of  whom  were  ex- 
Confederate  officers  and  soldiers,  not  a  few, 
indeed,  yet  wearing  their  army  uniforms. 

Resolutions  of  respect  and  of  fervid  regret 
were  offered,  and  were  adopted  unanimously. 


TEE   VOICE  OF  THE  SOUTH  173 

Xever  did  I  have  a  more  attentive  audience  or 
one  that  was  seemingly  in  more  perfect  accord 
with  the  spirit  of  what  I  was  saying.  That 
was  not  all,  either.  That  evening  I  was  again 
called  upon  to  make  a  funeral  address. 

A  densely  packed  assembly  of  Union 
soldiers  and  of  the  citizens  generally  of  Little 
Rock  gathered  in  the  hall  of  the  House  of  Rep- 
resentatives in  the  State  House.  Not  even 
here,  however,  could  I  discern  any  expression 
of  bereavement  more  sincere,  more  heartfelt, 
than  I  had  seen  in  the  noon  gathering  at  the 
Masonic  Hall.  The  whole  was  wonderful, 
such  as  might  never  be  forgotten,  a  sort  of 
flood  of  uncontrolled  and  uncontrollable  feel- 
ing. Nevertheless,  not  the  least  striking  fea- 
ture of  the  mourning  for  Lincoln  was  the  fact 
that  the  first  "  lodge  of  sorrow  "  of  any  kind, 
south  of  the  Ohio  River,  was  composed  of  the 
most  intelligent  as  well  as  the  most  determined 
of  the  supporters  of  the  "  lost  cause  "  which 
he  had  smitten  to  its  death. 


Our  Latest  Publications* 

Lincoln    at     Work.     By  Wmam  O.  Stoddard. 

Finely  illustrated  by  Sears  Gallagber.    173  pages,  cloth,  embel- 
lished cover  design.    Price,  §1.00. 

Probably  no  one  is  better  acquainted  with  the  everj-day  life  of 
Abraham  Lincoln  than  William  O.  Stoddard,  one  of  his  secretaries  at 
the  White  House  during  the  greater  part  of  the  war.  In  a  series  of 
fascinating  and  most  graphic  chapters,  Colonel  Stoddard  pictures  the 
gaunt,  ungainly  young  politician,  his  rapid  and  marvellous  rise  to 
power,  and  that  strange  life  in  the  White  House,  so  appealing  in  its 
pathos,  its  quaint  humor,  and  the  profound  tragedy  that  lay  under- 
neath it  all.  The  author  makes  us  feel  as  if  we  ourselves  had  been  per- 
mitted to  sit  by  the  side  of  the  great  President  in  his  dark  workroom, 
or  to  be  present  at  his  momentous  and  striking  conferences  with  his 
generals.  Many  anecdotes  are  told,  throwing  a  flood  of  light  upon  the 
times  and  the  man,  and  the  whole  closes  with  a  powerful  picture  of 
the  impression  produced  by  Mr.  Lincoliis  death,  even  in  the  South, 
where  Colonel  Stoddard  was  at  the  time.  Mr.  Stoddard  is  an  accom- 
plished story-writer  as  well  as  a  skilful  historian,  and  both  qualities 
come  into  play  in  making  this  delightful  and  important  book. 

From    Life    to    Life.    By  Rev.  J.  Wilbur  chapman,  D.  D. 

200  pages,  cloth.    Price,  gl.OO. 

A  collection  of  anecdotes,  stories,  incidents,  poems,  and  other 
Ulustrative  material  drawn  from  many  sources  and  touching  many 
topics.  A  leading  feature  of  the  book  is  the  large  number  of  incidents 
taken  from  life  and  carrying  their  own  lessons.  The  compiler,  well 
known  as  one  of  the  foremost  evangelists,  gathered  the  matter  for  his 
own  use  from  his  own  observation;  and  the  choicest  parts  have  been 
selected  for  this  volume.  It  will  therefore  be  of  great  interest  and 
value  to  Christian  workers  generally,  whether  for  their  own  help  or  as 
au  aid  in  winning  others. 

Doings  in  Derryville.  By  Lewis  v.  Price. 

212  pages,  cloth,  60  cents ;  paper,  25  cents. 

This  story  Is  of  a  noble  young  girl  who  finds  herself  in  one  of  those 
many  country  towns  which  have  quite  lost  their  Christianit\'  and 
become  almost  pagan.  The  church  was  closed,  Sunday  was  a  lost  day, 
worldliness  and  Satan  had  full  conti-ol. 

In  a  series  of  wide-awake  and  stirring  chapters,  Mr.  Price  describes 
the  organization  of  a  Christian  Endeavor  society.  A  Sunday  school 
soon  follows,  and  later  comes  a  pastor,  who  is  willing  to  use  his  powers 
in  meeting  the  great  need,  and  for  love  of  his  country  and  God  do 
what  he  can  to  build  up  the  neglected  country  town.  The  incidents 
woven  into  the  story  are  all  actual  facts  which  have  come  under  the 
author's  own  observation.  Two  beautiful  love  stories  sweeten  the 
tale  and  add  to  its  human  interest. 


UNITED  SOCIETY  OF  CHRISTIAN  ENDEAVOR, 

Boston  and  Chicago. 


The  Deeper  Life  Series* 

A  series  of  daintily  bound  books  upon  spiritual  themes  by  the  leading 
religious  writers  of  the  age.  Bound  in  uniform  cloth  binding. 
6  3-U  by  U 1-2  inches  in  size.    Price,  35  cents  each. 

The    Inner    Life*     By  BisHop  John  H.  Vmcent,  D.  D. 


t( 


A  study  in  Christian  experience"  which  shows 
how  the  life  of  the  soul  is  the  true  reality,  and  what 
striking  results  are  wrought  when  the  power  of  Christ 
and  the  ind^^elling  of  the  Holy  Spirit  become  the 
controlling  forces  in  a  life. 

The    Loom    of    Life*     ByRev.F.N.PeIoubet,D.D. 

"  The  threads  our  hands  in  blindness  spin, 
Our  self -determined  plan  weaves  in." 

"The  Loom  of  Life,"  and  "If  Christ  were  a  Guest 
in  our  Home,"  which  is  also  included  in  this  volume, 
are  two  very  helpful  sketches  by  the  author  of  that 
well-known  publication,  Peloubet's  "  Select  Notes." 
Many  new  and  forceful  truths  are  presented,  such  as 
will  give  the  reader  thought  for  serious  consideration 
for  many  a  day.  The  book  abounds  in  apt  illustra- 
tions and  anecdotes,  in  the  use  of  which  Dr.  Peloubet 
is  so  skilful. 

The  Improvement  of  Perfection. 

By  Rev.  William  E.  Barton,  D.  D. 

This  is  not  a  treatise  on  the  higher  life,  but  is  meant 
to  help  young  Christians  to  a  higher  life  by  showing 
what  kind  of  perfection  God  expects,  and  how  it  is  to 
be  gained,  at  the  same  time  furnishing  an  incentive 
to  attain  it.  The  aim  is  practical  rather  than  theo- 
retical, and  the  style  is  clear  and  attractive. 

I    Promise*      By  Rev.  F.  B.  Meyer. 

The  book  is  appropriately  called  "I  promise."  Its 
chapters  deal  with  matters  of  the  utmost  importance 
to  every  Christian,  such  themes  as  "  Salvation  and 
Trust,"  "Winning  God's  Attention,"  and  "What 
Would  Jesus  Do?"  In  strong,  sensible,  winsome 
words  the  path  of  duty  is  pointed  out,  and  conscience 
is  spurred  to  follow  it.  i 

UNITED   SOCIETY  OF   CHRISTIAN   ENDEAVOR, 

Boston  and  Chicago. 


The  ^^How^^  Series^ 

By  AMOS  R.  WELLS. 

7 1-4  by  4  1-^  inches  in  size.     Uniformly  hound  in  cloth  with  illuminated 
cover  design.    About  150  pages  each.    Price,  75  cents  each. 

How  To  Work. 

This  is  a  working  nation,  and  yet  few  among  its  millions  of 
workers  know  bow  to  work  to  tlie  best  advantage  and  with  tbe 
best  resnlts.  Tbe  fundamental  principles  of  wise  labor  are  set 
forth  in  these  chapters  in  a  familiar,  conversational  style. 
Much  of  the  book  consists  of  actual  talks  given  to  young  men 
and  women  starting  out  in  life.  "  Tuttering,"  "  Putting  Off," 
"Hurry  Up!"  "Taking  Hints,"  "A  Pride  in  Your  Work," 
"  '  Can '  Conquers."  '•  The  Bulldog  Grip."  "  The  Trivial  Round." 
—these  are  specimen  titles  of  the  thirty-one  chapters.  The 
book  is  not  didactic,  but  presents  truth  in  illustrations,  so  that 
it  sticks. 

How  To  Play. 

The  author  of  this  book  evidently  believes  in  recreation. 
The  very  first  chapter  is  entitled,  "  The  Duty  of  Playing."  Sepa- 
rate chapters  are  devoted  to  the  principal  indoor  amusements, 
conversation  and  reading  being  the  author's  preferences,  and 
also  to  the  leading  outdoor  sports,  especially  the  bicycle  and 
lawn  tennis.  There  are  many  practical  chapters  on  such  themes 
as  how  to  keep  games  fresh,  inventing  games,  what  true  recrea- 
tion is,  and  how  to  use  it  to  the  best  advantage.  "  Flabby  Play- 
ing." "  Playing  by  Proxy,"  "  Fun  that  Fits,"  "  Overdoing  It,"— 
these  are  some  of  the  chapter  titles.  In  one  section  of  the  book 
scores  of  indoor  games  are  described,  concisely,  but  with  suffi- 
cient fulness. 


How  To  Study. 


These  chapters,  on  a  very  practical  theme,  deal  with  the 
most  practical  aspects  of  it,— such  topics  as  concentration  of 
mind,  night  study,  cramming,  memory-training,  care  of  the  body, 
note-taking,  and  examinations.  The  author  makes  full  use  of 
his  experience  as  a  teacher  in  the  public  schools  and  as  a  college 
professor,  and  the  book  is  largely  made  up  of  talks  actually 
given  to  his  students,  and  found  useful  in  their  work.  The 
chapters  are  enlivened  by  many  illustrations  and  anecdotes, 
and  the  whole  Is  put  into  very  attractive  covers. 


UNITED  SOCIETY  OF  CHRISTIAN  ENDEAVOR, 

Boston  and  Chicago. 


ir:^ 


